1) I am a 19 year old cis-female. I generally think of myself as feminine, but I love men's fashion and occasionally like to cross-dress without changing my feminine hairstyle; button up shirts are almost all I own.

2) I identify as asexual. It took me a long time to realize that aesthetic attraction and sexual attraction are not the same. While I identify as ace, I do maintain a romantic orientation as homoromantic, but recently I've been questioning the validity of that; Sometimes I feel like I could give guys a chance, but perhaps it's just that I like the idea of being with a man more than actually being with one.

3) I am a virgin. I've never been kissed. I've never been in a relationship. It's not that I completely lack self-esteem, but rather I don't really understand the dynamics involved with "dating" or "being in a relationship". I can't seem to relate to other people because of that, and it's possibly because the concepts of love and sex are so heavily intertwined in their representation within society and because I picture them as separate I have to ultimately reevaluate my understanding to fit in, and this just hasn't been working.

4) I wish I had a girlfriend, but I'm not out and I don't know when I'll be more open about who I am. It's not because I'm ashamed, it's because I just can't handle the awkwardness associated with people knowing such personal information about me. Why is it anyone else's business? The question is not usually brought up anyway, as I appear and identify as female so I can easily pass through society; I can easily be invisible. But this has caused me to be more lonely than I would like.

5) I am not against sex. I am a very sex-positive person: it's a large part of society and people do it and so it needs to be and should be discussed. However, when I picture myself having sex I feel disgusted. I am repulsed at the thought of me having sex with a man, but I feel as though I might be able to tolerate it if it's with a woman; if I really loved her, I would accommodate her needs as best as I am able. I'm just not sure I would be able to receive pleasure from her. The thought makes me extremely apprehensive.

6) I have frequent periods in which I feel like sex is just whatever and I don't care about it. Which for the most part is all the time. However, this feeling is more like my body is disposable and others may use it freely, as opposed to not caring about sex and equally not wanting it. It's like I feel a separation from myself, my opinions, my interests and everything else that makes me who I am, and can just detach myself from my repulsion of sex for a brief period in order to pleasure someone else. Sometimes it scares me how unemotional and unfeeling I am about myself in this regard.

7) I do get turned on. I do masturbate (and I do it quite frequently). I do it when I'm stressed, or when I feel upset, or when I'm lonely; asexuality is a large spectrum and there is so much diversity that the only formal definition agreed upon in the community is lack of sexual attraction. Some aces do masturbate, some don't. Some have a lot of sex, others are virgins.

8) I get so nervous when talking to pretty girls. I just can't function properly, and I don't know why. I feel like maybe I come off as a try-hard when this happens, but I just can't tell. If I like a girl, I typically try to avoid her as much as I can. Right now, my current interest is someone who I used to not be interested in (I don't really become interested in friends, but rather acquaintances who I idealize), but lately as I've gotten to know her she has shown to be an incredibly intelligent, absolutely beautiful and highly interesting young woman. And as a friend, I can't really avoid her, so I am slowly learning how to be less awkward in my mannerisms around girls.

9) Before I discovered what asexuality was, I used to feel like something was wrong with me. Growing up Catholic, you are taught that sex is a natural thing in a heterosexual marriage and that it's the epitome of love within the confines of that marriage. I don't want sex and I don't want to get married, and this is essentially denying the factor that makes you human in the eyes of God. I felt subhuman, less than, inferior. I hated myself. Sometimes I still feel guilty.

10) Growing up as a female, I've encountered sexism from a young age. I felt caged and pressured to conform when I would have to dress up to attend formal balls and banquets; my appearance was put on the utmost pedestal, all because men view women as child-bearing trophies. I hated it: I hated the atmosphere of snobby girls silently judging me, I hated the slow dancing and the gross breath of my date whispering in my ear as he tried to put his hands a little too low for comfort, and I hated the shitty food that was served, too. I withdrew into myself and kept quiet for a long time thereafter, because I felt like my opinions and thoughts were being trampled on, and I wasn't being heard.

11) Sometimes I wake up in the morning and just have this undeniable urge to call up a girl on my contacts, invite her over, and have sex with her. I want to fuck her brains out. I can't help it: there are days (it's sporadic) where I wake up unbelievably horny, and taking care of it myself is so tiresome because I have to go at it for a very long time. I have to orgasm at least 3 times in order to satisfy the urge, and it'd just be easier if I let out my pent-up sexual frustration on a girl in a way that's most pleasurable and exciting to her.

12) I have watched porn before, but I don't really enjoy it. I have a love-hate relationship with it: Mentally, it does absolutely nothing for me, I don't find it pleasing to watch. I find it repulsive, grotesque and inherently misogynist, but after I watch it, my body responds to it in the completely opposite way and I notice that I become extremely wet after watching it. It's like there's this disconnect with my body and my brain, and I don't understand why that happens. I feel so guilty about it, and I hate not being able to have control over how my body reacts to certain things.

13) I think I have a fear of relationships, but I would really like to experience one soon. I just want someone to be there. No talking, no sex, nothing. I want someone to just enjoy the silence with me and cuddle with me in the park or on our bed. Not even sleeping, just a comfortable silence. Unfortunately, I don't think my chances of finding a girl like that are very high.

14) I am deathly afraid that I will never be touched the way I would like to be.

15) I get bored easily with crushes, because I assume (from past experiences) that they will never happen. I'm scared that with my first girlfriend, I'll become bored of her quickly, and that's not fair to her. She doesn't deserve that.

16) I am platonically attracted to guys. I wish I could have a really close guy friend without him wanting (or expecting) something more, but so far that hasn't been the case. I would also really enjoy hugging and hand-holding with guys, but nothing more. No kissing, no caressing, nothing. This is where the confusion sets in about my romantic orientation. I really, really enjoy the comfort and feeling I get when I hug guys and when I can smell the lavender scent of detergent in their clothes. I wish I could just be in their arms forever, sometimes.

17) I feel scared when I get close to girls. I always feel like there's some kind of tension, and I can't really place my finger on what. It's not a sexual tension, because I'm not sexually attracted to them. I just don't know what it is.

18) If a close female friend ever started to get overly touchy, start breathing on my neck, touch my thigh, I would get turned on. My body is so sensitive and so receptive to touch that I could probably orgasm from just that. The underside of my wrists are the most sensitive part of my body: I will get an orgasm just from light traces along my wrist, dragged up my forearm.

19) I am overly sweet on my female friends, and I bend over backwards just to help them out even if it inconveniences me. I don't expect anything in return, I just feel powerless sometimes when it comes to girls; I don't ever want them to feel the way I do - that their concerns aren't important enough or that my thoughts don't matter. But this makes me feel weak-willed and I feel like I end up being used and it's my own fault. But I just can't help it.

20) After I masturbate at night, I feel incredibly lonely and I often wish that I had a girl to cuddle with in the dark. I wish we could lay there facing each other, and my eyes would adjust to the darkness and the first thing I'd be able to see is the outline of her face and then the curve of her lips.

21) With most friends, I maintain a disinterested view on sex. If a sexual topic comes up, I stay silent or say "eww." I just don't feel comfortable talking about it; years of conservative upbringing and sexism have taught me that sex is a not a subject that should be discussed in public, or discussed from a women's viewpoint, much less. However, with closer friends that I happen to be out to, sex brings up very interesting debates that I find myself to really enjoy; my thoughts on sex just don't seem to match what I show to other people, and I'm trying to fix that in order to be more comfortable with talking about it to friends that I am not out to.

22) When I was young, about 6 or 7, I believe I was sexually assaulted by a doctor. The memory is really fuzzy, but I do remember being at the doctor's office, my mom sitting in the chair, and the male doctor examining my private area for about 10 seconds. There was no penetration. I'm not really sure what kind of illness would warrant that kind of conduct, and I remember the door was left open and the nurse was in there and she turned the computer screen towards me. I honestly can't really remember a whole lot about the incident. A few days later I do remember riding in the front seat of the car and hearing on the radio about a doctor who was arrested because he sexually assaulted a ton of children and had child pornography on his computer and my mom then changed the radio station. I've never talked to her about it because it's too faint of a memory to recall. I feel like it may be a repressed memory or something. I will probably not talk about it to anyone.

23) While I sometimes identify as lesbian, I don't feel accepted or wanted by the LGBT community because I'm ace; it's a heavily sexualized community and I don't feel like I fit in anywhere within it. I don't feel welcome.

24) I feel like if I ever were to have sex, I'd be a good lover. I feel like I take direction very well and be attentive to her needs in order to make her experience as good as possible.

25) If I were to choose between sex or cake I would most likely choose cake every time.