I spent a day with ASEXUALS

asexuals commonly referred to as ace are those described as lacking sexual attraction to others or having low - absent interest in sexual activity despite implications of asexuality existing since the dawn of humanity asexuality as a sexual orientation and field of scientific research is still relatively new with the first recognition in a scientific document dating back only 120 years ago as made evident by the thousands of comets from aces on my video with sex therapists who did not acknowledge aces asexuality is extremely common yet rarely recognized in our culture my name is Anthony Padilla and today I'm gonna be sitting down with aces to learn the truth behind this sexual orientation that far too many have written off as outrageous or ridiculous is a sexuality of valid sexual orientation or is it really just a way for people who are too scared of a romantic relationship to emotionally regress and avoid human connection altogether are asexuals truly able to live happy and fulfilling lives without strong sexual desire or are they simply convincing themselves that the deprivation of this basic human desire is normal in an attempt to suppress a deeper or darker insecurity or trauma [Music] hi Lauren hi hello Andrew hey hey hey Shelby thank you so much for coming out and teach me about the wondrous world of asexuality very wonder what do you consider yourself asexual ace I'm asexual grey asexual I usually just would use the word asexual although I haven't used it a lot mm-hmm because I haven't said it many times you haven't talked about your sexuality about it this is your my debut your debut what does being asexual entail the definition is you don't experience sexual attraction so a straight guy feels about another guy or a straight girl present another girl I just feel that about both genders people are just like 100% I won't have sex mmm definitely not me I'm more like maybe a 2% type of guy 2% of the time I do it asexual simply means someone who doesn't experience sexual attraction mm-hmm grey sexual is someone who you know experiences just a bit how long have you identified as asexual I went to an all-girls Catholic Academy so we were taught abstinence Oh abstinence is great mm-hmm we even had a club that was called True Love Waits oh we had a whole ceremony where we're white dresses we put on purity ring's the implication from the title alone implies that love is intrinsically connected with sexual desire yeah I just went along with it to sort of have an excuse to get myself out of dealing with that for a while and then when I started dating at 21 was gonna kind of realized I didn't really work the same way as everyone else I put it off for so long I was like I don't think everyone else feels the way that I feel started in high school yeah and you know everyone was kind of into boys and I when I kissed someones hella kissing a wall and another thing I said what she didn't like was I don't understand cheating what's the big deal I said because I've never understood it I mean I have multiple friends why not you know what's the difference are there different ways to identify as asexual within the you know is there a spectrum so you can be like a sex-positive asexual which I am yeah and this is someone whose find with sex you know they're fine with having sex with other people having sex there are sex for post asexuals who will never actually have sex they have no desire yeah he is discussing the correct give me sexual is who are people who are very much asexual but once they find a partner that they really connect with uh-huh then they're like okay I'm fine I'm actually attracted to this person right are some asexuals who are a romantic yeah okay they don't fall in love there are others who are very much romantic and they're like okay like I do want a like a partner maybe a lifelong partner who will connect with me emotionally how do you identify within this spectrum asexual that's the word that I feel the most comfortable with and I think that I would probably say heteroromantic you'll find hetero romantic relationships desirable but that's where it ends yeah which is alright because that just means I'm dating a bunch of straight guys who don't really get it do you find that people commonly assumed asexuality is the same as celibacy yes yeah like very often people think that I've had people tell me I'm also celibate you know I don't want to have sex anymore this year yeah yeah like this is a this is not a seasonal thing this is like everyday I've dated a lot of people oh yeah who are not asexual whenever I do intimate stuff it's more like kind of like an invasive medical exam like we're on a date and it's like oh this is fun we're getting to know each other and on my own no it's this part of the night it's not that it's necessarily bad it's just I feel nothing so it's kind of awkward like if you imagine taking all the emotion out of it yeah it would feel like I'm that example oh yeah do you proudly tell people that you're asexual or do you keep that more of a secret it's like a need-to-know basis yeah you know someone you know if I'm at a bar or something during with some people yeah and someone comes up to me and I really want to like that's when I got a no I swear it's happening I swear before we learn more about the wondrous world of asexuality I want to in that videos discussing anything sexual whether it be for educational purposes or journalism are almost always demonetized by YouTube meaning this video will likely earn zero dollars despite the hundreds of man-hours and the financial investment required to make this video in every video in this series when YouTube D monetizes the video they don't just take the money away they also suppress the video by recommending it's only a fraction of potential new viewers this basically means the multi-billion dollar companies behind most of the advertising revenue on YouTube are personally choosing which topics they feel should be discussed based on their own personal values no matter how close minded they might be I personally feel these topics and the people affected by their discussions are extremely important despite YouTube's advertisers blacklisting this content from being discovered so thank you all so much for supporting the series and subscribing and turning on all notifications so you ensure that you always see each new video as I release it despite whatever YouTube decides you should or shouldn't see that's all I wanted to say now back to learning about the wondrous world of asexuals have you found that it's possible to experience a happy and healthy relationship that doesn't include any sexual attraction whatsoever I actually have a loving boyfriend of a year yeah so that would be yes well congratulations thank you so you know me and my boyfriend do have sex we are physically intimate and you know maybe not as much as the average couple and for you it's more about making the intimate connection rather than like primal Drive that you feel right it's more of an emotional Act as opposed to a physical one my first boyfriend was at 21 and then really quickly he realized that I had never had sex before and he wasn't okay with that oh he said a lot of things that were pretty manipulative to tell me that there's something wrong with me part of me wanted to make it work and I at that point was like it's my fault I'm doing something for society is constantly telling you that is normal to feel these things and a few yeah you don't then it's something wrong there's something wrong with you he thought I was making a big deal out of it and I just needed to get it over with yeah but it didn't matter if I didn't want to yeah so I got out of there real quick I mean that takes a lot of strength to get out of a situation like that especially when you're constantly being told from every angle that you're in the wrong yeah you need to be giving someone something in order to be true to yourself and for a relationship to work but that sort of led me on the search to figure out like what is there a word for it is there something wrong with me do I need to go to a doctor and that's how I found the word asexual right and that there are other people like me how do you feel about our culture's affinity for overly sexualizing almost everything it makes a little uncomfortable I mean most things make me uncomfortable someone with anxiety I can run I still find it entertaining I don't know why using sexual things are entertaining to see I love romantic comedies yeah I'm like you don't really see the sex on screen it's about the intimate relationship so it's interesting to me watching porn on the other hand probably be entertained by like the plots people wonder who watches porn for the plot here we are have societal pressures ever made you question your own sexual desires or lack thereof yeah III don't feel like I'm missing on anything I mean I've seen friends go through just really stressful times and I'm like that just seems like a lot of work like breakups and stuff yeah like they're you know pregnancy scares yeah pregnancy happening you know do you plan to have children someday I don't know no more than I'm like scared of the whole pregnancy thing you're scared of pregnancy more than the children oh yeah I have no desire to raise a small little human being has nothing to do with sex or anything right I just don't have that type of commitment for 18 plus years just not into small creatures that need something every single moment of their lives until they're 18 correct or plus or plus yeah you got to pay for them to go to college and everything else it's too much work what's something you wish you could say to people who question asexuality as a sexual orientation first of all second of all educate yourself third of all I think all identities are valid at the end of the day well if you look at the other sexual orientations if you think of it as a box there's heterosexuality there's homosexuality there's bisexuality what's the opposite of that asexuality so it it makes perfect logical sense that it exists and it does exist the idea of sexuality and asexuality it's never for anybody else it's for you yeah so it really doesn't need to be anybody else's business and whether you believe asexual is a thing whether you think it's how they were raised if they were raised in abstinence like I was has a factor why does that matter if that's just how I want to feel why do you have to have a say in it carrot juice wants to know if you consider yourself to be part of the lgbtq+ community there's a little bit of discourse of whether asexuals even belong in LGBTQ qa+ spaces yeah or in the community at all and that some people will say we're just straight people looking for attention or we don't have different experiences from someone who's heterosexual which I would disagree yeah and even if you know we don't have to worry about being kicked out of her houses that I wouldn't compare but my experience especially my battle with myself where I wasn't accepting of myself I didn't want to be asexual yeah it was hard in the LGBT community there is this there is still a problem of people who are more than just gay right like Vee and LGBT stands for bisexual and even then by Eraser still exist both in and out of community so there's me even more on the friends asexual yeah yeah you know I don't have a letter in the acronym and it's like yeah it's it's a struggle Patrizio pi wants to know if you ever find it difficult to find other asexuals who can who understand I have one friend oh yeah so you guys connect over there yeah and she's the only person really that I know who is they say maybe 1% of the general population yes I just did the math that's like 75 million people as or wants to know if you ever wish you had more sexual desires you know sense of fit in more or do you prefer being asexual I thought that I would or I did wish that when I was just discovering who I was because I thought it would make everything easier in relationships I am Who I am I really can't change that yeah like once I came to the realization that was actually a big moment for me because I was finally comfortable in the body that I'm in mm-hmm I was like okay we're good to go what is it about being asexual if anything that brings you the most joy probably just the fact that it makes it easier to find good people because people will show their colors much faster it's rude you're not giving them what they want right away I guess the thing would just more time do the things I want to do yeah I'm sure a lot of asexuals agree got so much more time the cake look at you you haven't found about the cake yet not the one at the end of portal my cake is why though not not that cake in the asexual community we absolutely love cake but don't ask me why that doesn't have to do with sexuality absolutely not if you ever find yourself in a situation where you having sex don't you want cake more like I think that's just how that works a good way to understand if you are asexual or not is if when you are experiencing something sexual you'd rather be having kik correct has anyone in your life ever made you feel less than wouldn't say guys made me feel less than but they just didn't understand and tried to like push it any way mm-hmm and that made me feel like I wasn't being listened to or respected as a person it was almost like they didn't even accept that to be reality I remember I told this one guy I was like you know look I'm asexual and we had this deep conversation and he's like I feel like we've gotten closer because of this and I think then he kissed me or something totally missing the point yeah as being asexual affected any of your relationships yes absolutely I used to have a like a three month like expiration of any relationship that I was like once the honeymoon phase ends once the honeymoon phase ended it was like this just is it gonna work and that's usually how it went I wasn't able to communicate this very effectively all right communication breaks down overall I'm not broken there's nothing to fix here I'm absolutely perfect out of ten right never it's here never a problem in life you'd be lucky to have me do you ever get anxious when you're about to disclose to someone that you're asexual oh yeah you want to find a person that you can be comfortable doing it with because like your knees are knocking and yeah that's a lot of teeth clink and I'm not popping is there anything that you'd like to say to anyone who is asexual or maybe is considering that they might identify as asexual but maybe there they're uncomfortable maybe they're unsure about coming out because they were afraid of judgement when I was doing a little bit of self-discovery I was using the word broken a lot and I don't want other people to feel like there's anything wrong with them or anything to be fixed you're not broken and whatever word you feel like identifying with is there for you to feel comfortable it doesn't need to be for anybody else but you you are valid don't let anybody else tell you any different listen to yourself and be straight true to yourself you'll know if you're not attractive someone you'll know if you are don't let people tell you what to do don't give in to people just because you think that you should or just to make them happy like just be in touch with yourself and you'll know what orientation you are if you allow yourself to believe the truth about yourself I actually have a parting gift for you the best interviewer shirt which you could get at padilha shop calm but I'm gonna give it to you for free thank you so much did you make this yourself obviously I'm in it how is that it smells free the best smell subscribe I'm gonna bake you cake wait subscribe and I will bake you cake are you got 5 seconds a shout-out or promote anything you want directly in a camera go you can find me anywhere in the Internet as shovel or Shelby Grace's twitter instagram youtube facebook tumblr hi my albums coming out at the beginning of next year it's called psych ward by Lauren Rhodes follow me on instagram at the blue manikin I'm just here for you giggles but follow me on twitter at a different realm I don't do sit there though thank you so much Shelby I feel like I fully understand the wondrous world of asexuality it's so glad and congratulations on coming out to the entire oh my god I forgot already after spending the day with these aces I've come to understand how broad the spectrum of asexuality is and just how vastly different sexuality is for each and every person in a society that encourages diversity and freedom of expression shouldn't we strive to bring awareness and support for those who don't feel they fit in with sexual standards and expectations see you later bye guys press the like a lot of people when they hear the term asexual they're like oh do you like split into cells or something oh because it's they think it means impregnating yourself yeah you don't do that no no no no I trust me I do not do like okay no no I think I'm capable of doing good good good we cleared that up

Channel: AnthonyPadilla

Views: 4,503,111

Rating: 4.9655619 out of 5

Keywords: anthony padilla, padilla, anthony, smosh anthony, anthony padilla smosh, asexual, asexuality, asexual people, i spent a day with, interview

Id: zW29J3nxjis

Length: 17min 29sec (1049 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 14 2020

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[u/ODMAN03]

I really respect Anthony for making these videos. Not only for the asexual one, but for many groups that I feel is often misunderstood

[u/havingfun89]

I remember seeing this when it first came out, I was gonna try to be on it but I wasn't available to go to LA at the time. :/

[u/_TopsyTurvy_]

Doesn’t the A in the acronym stand for asexual!? I thought it standing for ally was debunked

[u/Sarazenga29]

When I realized shubble was asexual I cried. She’s such an inspiration

[u/scarzkira]

I was always upfront about being asexual before dating someone but they often took it as a challenge and we'd make it about 3 months before they'd try to rape me. So I ended up very untrusting, but then I met someone who wasn't lying about being okay with it. We've been together 5 sexless years, just got married, and even though I'm sex repulsed, I've managed to happily sleep with him by focusing on our love and commitment (plus we want kids). ^_^

[u/AceOcelot]

this was the video that made me realize i was asexual!

[u/pikipata]

I relate so much to the woman with eye glasses (Lauren?) when she says sex feels like a basic medical examination. That's what you get when you're not sex repulsed but lack the sexual desire towards anyone 😂

[u/briannaonreddit]

I’ve watched this video like 30 times. It’s so good and I love how all of the guests were on different parts of the spectrum.