Ace of Hearts

(Rough Draft)

By Dalia Reed
The day I found out exactly what I was would be around early freshman
year, sometime in October, the where being on the bus to school.
I was sitting with my friend Roxy, whose hair at the time was in its usual dark
shading, locks like rivers of jet cascading slowly down her pale shoulders. She was
wearing whatever off-the-shoulder sweater she had with a pair of comfy looking,
ripped jeans and steel-toed boots. Sitting on her lap was another girl with a cute
pixie-like face and the haircut to match it. She had violet coloured skinny jeans,
squared glasses, and a Nirvana sweater.
They were in a separate conversation together; Roxy was busy explaining the
situation of why I didnt date to the girl (Ill call her Alex), while I was busy
wondering why her sweater depicted a naked baby swimming towards a dollar bill,
when Alex turned to me with an answer that would define who I was in the future.
Youre asexual, she smiled, a small dimple forming on her cheek.
A what? I turned to Roxy, who laughed a little at my look of confusion.
Asexual, Dalia.
Alex positioned herself towards me before proceeding to explain. Its
basically where you dont really feel much attraction towards people, She gestures
with her hands as she talks; You can have, like, friends but dating usually isnt your
thing which is totally cool cause Im asexual too.
I nodded, not fully understanding her explanation. Looking back, she was
partially correct, but asexuality goes much deeper than that.
You see, there are three types of attraction; sexual, romantic, and aesthetic.
By default, asexuals (or aces for short) feel little to no sexual attraction to anyone.
Most of them dont feel any romantic attraction either, though some do; whereas
aesthetic attraction (the most common amongst asexuals) is where you like
someone for their looks, but nothing more. Sort of like liking a painting, or any other
piece of art.
After her clarification on the matter we had jumped from topic to topic until
reaching our destination. The whole concept of this foreign orientation escaped my
mind for a full two years until I reached 11 th grade. In the beginning of the year, I
took more of an interest in this lifestyle. However, as it turns out, asexuality is not a
very widely accepted concept. As it is often mistaken for celibacy, asexuality is
dismissed as prudish, immature, or completely denied as an orientation. To add to

its obscurity, only about one percent of the worlds population is identified as
asexual. Some of the most common responses to those coming out as one are:
You just have to wait for the right one.
So, youre into animals/objects then? Or one of my personal favorites, Youre
gonna die alone with twenty cats.
So when I finally told my second oldest sister about what I was (and during
Asexual Awareness Week no less), I was absolutely shocked to see her face break
into a wide grin. Almost immediately, she began shooting out rapid-fire questions;
asking me things like When did you figure out this part of yourself? and Do you
think about getting married sometime in the future, or would you prefer to stay
single?. She even told me how one of her dorm friends was an asexual as well.
It felt pretty relieving to finally encounter someone who actually took the
time to ask questions and all around embrace me for me. There was actually a point
in my life where I thought there really was something wrong with me. It didnt do
me much good when I was constantly shamed for explaining how I felt to others.
Always being told to get over it, because everyone else does it had started to
become the norm in my life. If you ask me, telling an asexual to start liking sex is
about as useful as telling a homosexual to start liking the opposite sex, or a
heterosexual to start liking the same sex. It simply wouldnt work out.
However, even with something as obvious as this to refer to, some people
still choose to ignore these facts and point accusing fingers to others because
theyre different. Sometimes, I wish with all my heart that they would be a little
open-minded with the idea that some people just dont function the same way as
most. We are all wired differently from the start, but if people continue on this
discriminatory path, then it will cause people like me to never fully shake that slight
pang of loneliness that comes from being one of the few who dont like sex in a sexcrazed world.