Check out this first entry in a new series about asexuality authored by Equip Intern Erin Kang-Hui. Over the next season, she’ll offer personal story and a theological conceptualization of asexuality, explore the diversity within the ace spectrum, examine the impacts on friendship and our capacities for both vocational singleness and Christian marriage, and teach both parents and pastors how to better minister to an ace Christian committed to following God’s wisdom. Erin is a student at the University of Nevada (Las Vegas) studying English and a student leader in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
“I think I’m asexual.”
Maybe your teenager says this to you in the car. Maybe a student asks to talk after youth group. Maybe a young adult you have known for years sits down in your office and tells you they have been trying to understand their sexuality.
If you don’t know much about asexuality, you may immediately have questions:
What does asexual even mean? Does this mean they never want to get married? Is asexuality the same as celibacy? Is it an LGBTQ+ identity? Could there be a medical reason? What does this mean for their faith? What am I supposed to say?
Those questions are understandable. Some are important and worth exploring eventually. But you don’t have to answer all of them in the first conversation.
In fact, there’s a more important question to answer first:
How can I respond in a way that makes this person want to keep talking to me?
I’m writing about this from personal experience as an asexual and aromantic-spectrum Christian. That experience is part of why I care about helping other Christians respond well when someone trusts them with something this personal.
Telling someone that you’re asexual isn’t necessarily a declaration about what relationships you intend to pursue or what you believe about Christian sexual ethics. Someone may not be dating anyone or having sex at all. So why tell you?
Sometimes, the answer is simply that they want to be known.
For me, telling people that I’m asexual or aromantic has never just been about telling them who I am or am not attracted to. These words helped me make sense of experiences I had struggled to understand for years. Sharing them with someone else can be a way of saying, “This is something I’ve discovered about myself, and I want you to know me well enough to know this, too.”
Realizing that you experience attraction differently from the people around you can affect how you think about yourself, relationships, marriage, and your future. Sharing that part of yourself can be an act of trust.
So before trying to determine what asexuality means for the rest of someone’s life, it helps to understand what they’re actually telling you.
What does “asexual” mean?
Asexuality, sometimes shortened to ace, generally describes experiencing little or no sexual attraction.
By sexual attraction, I mean feeling sexually drawn to a particular person—experiencing sexual interest or desire directed toward them. That’s different from recognizing that someone is objectively good-looking, enjoying their company, wanting physical affection, or wanting a romantic relationship.
That last distinction can be especially tricky, because sexual and romantic attraction are often treated as if they are the same thing. They aren’t necessarily. I’ll explore that distinction more fully in a later post.
Asexuality also exists on a spectrum. Some asexual people experience no sexual attraction. Others experience it rarely, weakly, or only under particular circumstances. There’s much more terminology we could introduce here, but you don’t need an entire vocabulary lesson to have a good first conversation with someone who tells you they’re ace.
For now, the important thing to remember is that asexuality describes someone’s experience of sexual attraction.
One analogy may help.
Think of attraction as two dials, not one slider
People sometimes picture sexual orientation as a single slider running from heterosexual to homosexual, as though attraction to the opposite sex and attraction to the same sex have to trade off against each other.
Instead, imagine two separate dials. One represents sexual attraction to the opposite sex. The other represents sexual attraction to the same sex.
A heterosexual person might have opposite-sex attraction turned up while same-sex attraction is around zero. A gay or lesbian person might have the opposite pattern. A bisexual person might experience both, and the two dials don’t have to be set at the same level.
For an asexual person, both may be at or near zero.
Like any analogy, this simplifies something much more complicated. Human sexuality can’t actually be reduced to two knobs on a control panel. But it helps explain something I struggled to make sense of when I was first figuring out that I was asexual.
I remember thinking, “I feel the same way about men and women, so maybe I’m bisexual.”
Eventually, I realized, “Wait. I feel the same way about men and women because I’m equally not sexually attracted to either.”
Equal attraction and an equal absence of attraction can be surprisingly difficult to distinguish when you’re trying to understand yourself, especially if you’ve spent your life assuming that everyone experiences sexual attraction and that you must experience it, too.
Asexual doesn’t necessarily mean aromantic
Asexuality describes experiencing little or no sexual attraction. Aromanticism, sometimes shortened to aro, describes experiencing little or no romantic attraction.
Some asexual people are also aromantic. Others aren’t.
An asexual person may still fall in love. They may have crushes. They may want to date, get married, share a home with someone, or build a life with a romantic partner. Another ace person may not want any of those things.
Likewise, aromantic people have their own individual experiences of relationships, intimacy, and companionship. Aromanticism deserves more attention than I can give it here, so I’ll return to it in a later post.
For now, hearing “I’m asexual” does not automatically mean “I don’t fall in love” or “I don’t want a relationship.”
Asexuality doesn’t tell you whether someone is called to marriage or vocational singleness
Asexuality, vocational singleness, and common singleness describe different things.
Asexuality describes someone’s experience of sexual attraction.
Vocational singleness, also known as celibacy, is a commitment to lifelong singleness for the sake of kingdom work with undivided attention.
Common singleness is the abstinent singleness we are all born into. In common singleness, someone is still discerning whether they may later enter into a Christian marriage or commit to vocational singleness.
That means being asexual does not, by itself, tell you someone’s vocation.
Some people suggest that a lack of sexual attraction may be a sign that God is calling someone to vocational singleness, or even part of what makes lifelong celibacy possible. But Scripture does not teach that people without sexual attraction are automatically called to celibacy. Historically, Christians discerning celibate religious life or priesthood have often been people who were capable of marriage and could genuinely desire it.
An asexual person may want to date, marry, have children, or build a life with a spouse. Another may joyfully embrace vocational singleness.
You have to get to know the person in front of you. Being asexual doesn’t answer that question for them.
Don’t assume what asexuality means for this person
Once we hear a label, it’s tempting to fill in everything else ourselves.
You might assume someone who is asexual never wants to date, marry, kiss anyone, have children, or experience physical affection. You might assume they are aromantic or called to vocational singleness.
You may also wonder whether something caused their asexuality. Were they hurt? Could their hormones be off? Is there an underlying medical issue? Will they still identify this way five or ten years from now?
Having those thoughts doesn’t make you a bad parent, pastor, or Christian. Some may become worth talking about later.
But “asexual” gives you one piece of information. It doesn’t tell you someone’s whole story. They may still be figuring that story out themselves.
A teenager or young adult does not need to know whether they will use the same word at 30, whether they will marry, or what every future relationship will look like before they can honestly describe what they experience now.
Let them tell you what the word means to them.
What shouldn’t I say in the first conversation?
Imagine finally telling someone something deeply personal and immediately hearing:
- “You’re too young to know.”
- “You just haven’t met the right person.”
- “You’ll change your mind.”
- “Everyone feels like that sometimes.”
- “Maybe your hormones are off.”
- “Were you abused?”
- “You should see a doctor.”
- “At least you won’t struggle with sexual sin.”
- “Maybe God gave you the gift of singleness.”
- “So you’re never getting married?”
These responses may come from genuine concern rather than cruelty. A parent may sincerely wonder whether their teenager is old enough to know. A pastor may immediately think about marriage, singleness, and Christian teaching. Someone unfamiliar with asexuality may genuinely wonder whether health can affect sexual desire.
The problem is not that you have questions. It’s what happens when those questions become your first response.
The person who opened up to you can quickly find themselves defending their experience instead of being heard. They may leave the conversation thinking, Maybe I shouldn’t talk to this person about this again.
Curiosity is good. But curiosity is different from immediately trying to explain, diagnose, correct, or predict someone.
What should I do instead?
You can start very simply:
“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”
Then listen.
You might ask:
- “What does being asexual mean to you?”
- “How did you come to realize this?”
- “How long have you been thinking about it?”
- “What has this been like for you?”
- “Is there anything you’re worried I might assume?”
- “Is there anything you want me to understand?”
You can also admit what you don’t know:
“I don’t know very much about asexuality yet, but I want to understand.”
And if they feel pressure to know exactly what all of this means for the rest of their life, you can remind them:
“You don’t have to have your whole future figured out right now.”
The theological and discernment questions can come later. You may eventually want to talk about whether asexuality is part of the brokenness of creation, how it relates to Christian teaching about sexuality, how someone might discern marriage or vocational singleness, or what sex might look like within a marriage involving an asexual spouse.
Those are real questions. They just don’t all need answers in the first conversation.
That’s part of discipleship. We listen, learn, pray, study Scripture, ask difficult questions, make mistakes, grow, and continue walking with one another. How you respond now can shape whether someone feels like they can keep coming back to you later.
Someone who tells you, “I think I’m asexual,” may have spent months or years trying to understand why their experience seems different from everyone else’s. I know that process can take time. It took me about five years to find the asexual label and another six to understand that I was also on the aromantic spectrum.
By the time someone tells you, they may have been sitting with these questions for years.
You may have had thirty seconds.
It’s okay if you need time, too. Neither of you has to figure everything out in one conversation.
So if you don’t know what else to say, start here:
“Thank you for telling me. Help me understand.”
It doesn’t answer every question Christians may have about asexuality.
But it does something important first.
It keeps the conversation open.
