A revellation

Just before I watched the Doctor Who finale, I realised what may be the connection between my dysphoria and my asexuality.

It came about when I was reading The Colour Purple. It's the book I'm set to read in English, except it's all about the main girl, Celie, writing letters to god. The letters are rather blunt. She clearly explains her own father sexally abusing her, the woman known as Shug Avery teaching her how to pleasure herself, and I told my partner that if I got dysphoria from that scene, I'd very very upset.

But not long after, I realised that I hadn't needed to worry about dysphoria at all. The discomfort and internal trauma I was feeling was linked directly to being asexual. I didn't feel like I should be reading it because I was so out of my depth. I don't experience any of that stuff, because I don't feel sexual attraction. Reading such a detailed description of Celie's body, the part of her that nobody but Mr ____, her husband, would see, the part on women have, made me want to throw the book aside and not go near it again.

So here's the thing. I am asexual because I have dysphoria. They are both one in the same. I don't get attracted because I'm so thrown off by my own body.

Whether or not this may change with the appropriate surgery, I don't know. Perhaps I never will, since I don't intend to get bottom surgery. But either way, it's good to finally know that I'm not just broken, or 'looking for the right person'. I always knew I wasn't, since that's a load of crap. I can't control my asexuality any more than anybody else can control who they're attracted to. Besides, I've already found the person I've been looking for, even at this early age, so it's not that.

I'm not even beginning to say this is the same for everybody. Many people just don't have a sex drive, and that's completely fine. Of course it is. But now I know the cause of mine, I feel a little more in control of everything than I did. And that is worth everything.