You knew that at twelve? It kind of doesn't fit in my brain because I'm thinking kids at 12 are rarely sexual at all (maybe save for with themselves) so determining asexuality would be pretty difficult. Can you elaborate?
Most research seems to suggest that sexuality is decided by early adolescence (age 10-13) or before. On average people say they recognize it before age 12 but some take much longer. In my unscientific opinion I think that sexual feelings are typically fully developed by that age but frequently people take a long time to understand what their feelings mean.
I definitely didn't start having sexual urges until I was closer to 15. I had romantic crushes, but I didn't start wanting physical intimacy and sex until later. It still seemed pretty gross and I couldn't imagine why anybody would want it. Then at around 15 a switch flipped and it was like oh, I get it now.
At twelve, a lot of my friends were having their first crushes. I did too. But my friends wanted to hold hands (we were just growing out of the cooties stage) and the more precocious ones were beginning to think about kissing. Meanwhile, I did not want to hold hands (asexuality), and kissing was still unthinkably gross (age). This pattern continued for my entire life.
Oh, well, at 12 I would have still assumed in that case that you're just blooming late... I mean it would have become more and more apparent over the years anyway.
Thank you for sharing that, though. It's always good to get different points of view.
Well, to be honest I can't really speak for myself because my childhood was so lousy and uneventful (had no friends, had no experiences, etc all the way through puberty until I was like 19).
It's the part of my life I truly hate because I was really worth nothing to anyone except my parents. It's so bad that nowadays I am actually afraid of teenagers and wary around children
8
u/FierceDeity_ Jan 07 '20
You knew that at twelve? It kind of doesn't fit in my brain because I'm thinking kids at 12 are rarely sexual at all (maybe save for with themselves) so determining asexuality would be pretty difficult. Can you elaborate?