Maybe You're Ace - Long Distance Relationships

Dear Miss U,

I am a girl who not interested in sex at all. I don't ever feel like I want to have sex or "cybersex" or whatever they call it. I don't know if the problem is me or society, I never had sex before and never had a boyfriend because I couldn't. It is kind of a social issue.

I am also a shy girl. I always saved myself for someone; I will fall in love with and will marry him. I was always an outlier of my society's rules. I always said if I found someone who has everything I love, I wouldn't mind having a boyfriend, but unfortunately, he is living on the other side of this world when I finally found him.

Well, he loves me so much and I love him a lot I am ready to do everything to live the rest of my life with him.

He is addicted to asking me to have "cybersex" with him. He says that the "cybersex" will make our relationship stronger. I always said, "No, I can't." He also promised me that he won't watch bad things and that he just wants me.

He really loves me and even when I say no he doesn't hurt me and hides his sadness always but I can feel it. It's an embarrassing problem, I know that. Please give me advice.

I feel like that our relationship is dominated by cold and instability day after day and I don't know what to do. He is no longer as he was in the past with me. He became careless and prefers games and his friends over me.

D. L.

Dear D. L.,

The good news is, there’s nothing wrong with you and there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

Your letter makes me think there’s a strong possibility that you are asexual, or “Ace” as the cool kids say. Asexuality is just another type of sexuality, like pansexuality (feeling sexual attraction regardless of gender) or heterosexuality (only feeling aroused by people of the opposite gender). Sexual orientation is part of the puzzle that makes each person uniquely themselves.

Asexual people feel little to no interest in sex, regardless of their culture or social status, though they do feel romantic attraction and are interested in having long-term romantic relationships. (There are people who aren’t interested in dating, marriage, settling down and all those things, these people are “aromantic” and there’s nothing wrong with them either.)

I’m going to go ahead and link a couple of pages that go into better detail on asexuality to help you figure out if that’s part of who you are. If you do find that you are asexual, there are heaps of people like you who would love to support you, so reach out and find your community. They will be the best people to answer specific questions and help you navigate continuing a romance with a zedsexual partner. (Zedsexual = people who do experience sexual attraction, and who are interested in having sex.)

Wiki How to Know if you are Asexual.
Asexual Orientation - A personal story.

Onto the rest of your letter! If your partner is nagging you, asking repeatedly, to engage in sexual behaviors in person OR online, that’s not OK. That’s disrespectful and you need to advocate for yourself and tell him it’s never going to happen, and he needs to get off your case about it. If you change your mind, you know where to find him!

Now, about porn. You might not like porn. You might not understand porn. But him watching pornographic content is none of your business. If he wants to play smack-the-snake alone in his room with some badly-acted smut, that’s his decision. That’s part of his sexual relationship with himself. The only time you need to get involved with that might be if he is experiencing a real addiction, which might cause him to miss work or social events, or if he wants to bring porn into the sexual relationship he has with you. (For example: Watching it while you are being intimate with each other).

Frankly, if you don’t want to have sex with him, and you don’t want him having sex with anyone else, porn is your friend. Porn might be the thing that saves your relationship. It’s not realistic to expect a zedsexual person to just ‘turn off’ their attraction. Zedsexual people deserve to have an outlet for their urges, just as much as asexual people deserve to be respected and not pressured into activities they have no interest in.

As uncomfortable as it might be, you are going to have to talk to your boyfriend about this, and discuss long-term strategies that work around this incompatibility, so that you can both continue to enjoy the rest of your wonderful relationship. You are both going to need to be honest and make yourself vulnerable, and then choose what is right for you.

Whilst culture is super important, not everything in our cultures is necessarily something that’s going to serve us. Not all traditions need to be carried forward into the next generation. Some things in our cultural traditions are even wrong, backwards, or harmful. So, if you feel there’s something in your culture that isn’t serving you, I hope you can have the courage to say "No," and not adopt that into your life. When we are in relationships with people from other cultures we have to try and understand their outlooks too.

When you marry, if you choose to – marriage isn’t for everyone, you will be creating a new family unit. One that can have whatever traditions you want, and honors the aspects of your culture that you agree with. What I’m saying here is this is your life. Be true to yourself, whoever you are, regardless of what your boyfriend wants or your culture expects.

Be yourself, and people like you will be attracted by your light.

In kindness,

Dear Miss U, I met this awesome guy online for 3 months now. I live in Manila and he is from Rome. We are in our middle thirties and has expressed our feelings to one another though we don’t label ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend yet. He is very vocal that he wants to make love with me online (you know guys have a higher percentage of sex drive versus girls). Of course, I said that I cannot do that. I never had any relationship and sex prior to this and I am really not into this kind of thing… [read more: Intimate Beginnings]
Dear Miss U, I have been with my boyfriend for 6 months; 4 of them apart. My issues are in the sex topic. He gets stressed if I propose to have phone sex cause he can’t touch me and I get stress cause I feel sometimes he doesn’t want me. I try to talk about the issue twice in the worst way ending in a fight. How can I express what I feel without pressure him or what else I can do? [read more: Let’s Talk About (Phone) Sex]

About the Author

Miss U

Miriam Cumming is a writer, witch, and LDR survivor with more than a decade of trans-Pacific experience. She’s currently living in paradise with her one true love and their three little gentlewomen where she indulges in coffee, tattoos, and World of Warcraft. You can learn more about her writing and LDR success from her blog The Wicce Writes.