Loveless (18+)

 Ever since I was a little kid, I never thought about a fairytale romance.

I was shown porn by a friend when I was about 5 (they were 6 I think at the time) on good old unrestricted YouTube. What I remember of the video as a very close up image of a woman giving a man a blow job. It was messy, loud, and I remembered feeling fascinated yet very uncomfortable. At the time i called them “sex videos” and i remember telling my dad all about it when he asked what the two of us had been up to, and he got incredibly angry at me for heavens knows why. I hadn’t been the one looking up sex on the computer, was I? 

What followed was a childhood of a very sexualized mindset throughout my childhood. I was 8 looking up dirty jokes on google images for entertainment, and watching previews for 18+ Movie on iTunes just to pass the time. I read Fifty Shades when i was 13 just because i was curious, then again at 15 and a few more times after that. I started seeking out porn on my own when i was 15 and began masturbating because it felt like a rebellion. Did i enjoy it? I genuinely still don’t know. After now bunking with someone in a dorm for nearly three weeks and having not done it, i can say with confidence that i don’t miss it, which is pretty fucking cool. 

But what does this have to do with romance? Or lack thereof? Or Loveless for that matter? 

Not anting to have sex with people was something i was told i would grow out of. I would find someone i loved or jus finish going through puberty and THEN i would be interested in marriage and sex and having children. But its not as though i was unaware of what sex entailed when i was younger, clearly i did. I never ha “the talk” with my agents, the internet was my tell all, where i got all my info, and i still didn’t want it. Marriage because the commitment was horrifying and the religious aspects made me uncomfortable. Kids because ew, and sex because…

That’s just it, isn’t it? I had gone through puberty, i had watched porn, had sexy dreams, and still, just no. I still didn’t feel that telltale horniness that supposedly came with the acne and armpit hair, i had watched porn and felt neutral still, and those sexy dreams? More like intrusive thoughts, i felt disgusting when i woke up. I never saw a person and went damn, i want a taste. I still held onto the supposed “childish dreams” of my childhood. Living with my friends, staying single forever, adopting a dog together, maybe even having bunk beds. 

And its funny, because even after all this, i still gave away my asexual pride flag after i had my first orgasm because i figured the label didn’t fit me anymore. 

What  Rooney Bach describes in her monologue in Loveless by Alice Oseman is how i have always felt.  I want to find my platonic soulmate and spend forever with them, the adult version of wanting to get a big house with your best friend before you even have the concept of money. I want to find the Rowan to my Jimmy, the Frances to my Aled, the Rooney to my Georgia.