I’m a “Gray Asexual.” My Partner Isn’t.

Thanks to decades of public advocacy work, as well as improving media representation, many people are familiar with the idea of asexuality—when people experience little to no sexual attraction or desire. (Research on the asexual community is still in its infancy, so statistics on the subject are notoriously hazy, but most experts agree that at least 1 percent of all people may identify with the concept of asexuality.) Yet outsiders often struggle to grasp what that means in practice. 

Like the fact that there’s a difference between asexuality and aromanticism. Asexuals often feel non-sexual attraction, and many seek romantic relationships with those they’re drawn to—in many cases, people who aren’t asexual themselves—although they may prefer acts like cuddling and conversation over sex to maintain intimacy in those relationships. Or the fact that there’s a difference between seeing others as sexual prospects and having a libido—an urge for sexual release. Many asexuals masturbate, although they may not think about sex or use stimuli like porn while doing so and many describe the sensation as akin to a nice massage. And while the thought of having sex repulses some, others are open to partnered sex—albeit perhaps only in some contexts. Meanwhile, many allosexuals (the opposite of asexuals) have low libidos or choose celibacy. 

Vanishingly few outside of asexual circles are aware of all the other identities that fall under the ace umbrella, the catchall category for people who don’t experience normative, allosexual attraction to others. Even gray asexuality (a.k.a. graysexuality, gray ace, or gray a), a term that covers everyone who falls between asexuality and allosexuality and, according to recent surveys of the ace community, may be the second most common ace identity, behind asexuality itself. “Mainstream media rarely covers gray asexuality,” says Tristan Miller, director of the Ace Community Survey team. “When they do, they rarely go beyond providing a definition—and the definition is often bad.” 

Widespread ignorance of graysexuality is somewhat understandable. The term only emerged in 2006, as part of wider conversations in asexual forums about the diversity of ace expression and experience, and broke into mainstream culture in 2015. It’s also intentionally vague, meant to cover many “people who don’t quite fit other narratives,” Miller explains—which is great for an inclusive sense of belonging but makes the term “notoriously difficult to define.” 

Generally, gray asexuality encompasses people who feel sexual attraction and desire but much less than the average person. They might feel these sensations at such low levels, or in such short bursts, that it doesn’t really affect or matter to them. Or they may almost never feel it, save in very specific contexts, or random waves—perhaps once a year, or even only once or twice in their lives. Like other aces, some gray asexuals are repulsed by or averse to sex, while others are neutral on it, and others still may be super down, given the right conditions. Every graysexual experience is unique. 

Many people who could live under this big gray tent choose not to identify with the concept, though—and most ace thinkers say that’s cool. The term ultimately exists to help people who've always felt confused by the way others talk about attraction and sex and/or uncomfortable with sex-focused culture—different but not fully asexual—put words to their experiences and find community.

But widespread ignorance and confusion around graysexuality breeds painful misunderstandings and stigmas. Like other aces, they’re often dismissed (they just haven’t found the right person or had good sex), denigrated (pop culture has historically portrayed asexuals as broken or immature), and pathologized (their low attraction and drive must be medical issues that need fixing). Some people take these stigmas as license to try to force them to be sexual or have sex. Graysexuals specifically also experience occasional gatekeeping in ace spaces, with folks arguing that they’re just average allosexuals who want to feel special, invading a minority space. (Most ace thinkers agree that’s a pretty ill-informed hot take.) All of which can cause gray aces pain, isolation, and anxiety.  

In recent years, a few gray asexuals have openly shared their experiences to push back on false perceptions, poor representations, and the stigmas they breed. But their stories mostly focus on what the term actually means and their paths to unique understandings of their gray identities. Accounts of gray asexual relationships and intimacy in particular—especially with non-gray ace partners—are almost nonexistent in the media. To help people get a better, wider sense of what graysexuality looks like in practice, VICE spoke to Buddy, who came out as a gray ace a couple of years ago, and his allosexual partner, Nemo, about how they’ve navigated gray asexuality within their relationship.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. At their request, VICE has used pseudonyms for Buddy and Nemo, in order to protect their privacy. 

Buddy: I’ve always felt attraction and desire for people—it’s just not sexual. Like, I can see a guy and go, “Oh, he’s hot.” But if he asked me if I wanted to do anything, I’d say, “Eh, no thank you.” And I can fantasize about people, but even when my fantasies are sexual, I don’t actually want to do anything with them. My attraction is mostly in my head—emotional and intellectual. 

I have had sex quite a bit, though, because I developed the mentality that if you don’t sleep with people, they won’t like or love you. So if I wanted to have relationships, I had to bite the bullet and go through the motions, whether or not I enjoyed sex, to make sure my partners were happy. I’m not fully averse to sex. I try to enjoy it vicariously through another person. But my mind tends to wander. Like, if someone tries to give me oral, I’m thinking, What do I need to pick up at the store after this? Maybe I’ll orgasm, maybe I won’t. Then it’s just like, OK, now let me get you off so you feel taken care of and I can get on with my day. I actually assumed sex was eh for everyone, though people seemed to enjoy it more than I did. I’m also autistic, so I get sensory issues with parts of sex. The feel of lube makes my skin crawl, for example. I can’t stand it. 

When I was 18, I met a BDSM group and I realized, Oh, this is a way of doing things that feels sensual—but not like sex. It was a way for me to feel connected to people with no penetration or anything like that. In most situations, I never take my clothes off. So I’m active in the BDSM/kink community. Once a month, I go and expend some … how do I put this … pent-up, non-malicious aggression on people who want to be aggressed. Then I go back to my ordinary life. Although it does get annoying when these young guys assume I’m a dom daddy who’ll fuck them. No. No, I will not. I’ll tell you to pay your taxes, eat your greens, and clean your room! 

But in my first marriage, my husband wanted sex at least weekly, and eventually, I couldn’t bring myself to go through the motions anymore—especially at that frequency. I’m Gen X, and a lot of my generation grew up thinking that a lack of attraction or desire was mostly a medical problem, so I did the whole medicalization thing, trying to find reasons why I wasn’t interested in sex, and “solutions,” like testosterone treatments. But around the time that marriage started to break up, about three years ago, I realized that there might just be something different about me. And when Nemo and I got together just over two years ago, I found the space to start examining that. 

Nemo: I picked up on the fact that there was something different about how Buddy related to sex, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. We’d known each other for at least a decade, and I knew his ex-husband and other people he’d dated, so I knew that he did have sex. But when we’d roll around and make out and I’d feel like it’d usually progress towards full sex and penetration, things would usually just fizzle out. Part of me was like, OK, what’s the process here? Why are we not having sex so often? Coming out of my previous relationship, where sex was everything to my ex-husband—he always needed it—I thought, Am I expecting too much because of how my ex treated me? Is the need for sex to be something that happens all the time just ingrained in me now? So while I had expectations about sex in our relationship, I didn’t push things. 

Buddy: He just accepted what I could and couldn’t do. That gave me the space to explore. We also have a lot of friends who are varying degrees and types of queer, including people in the ace community, which helped me find vocabulary for my experiences. I do occasionally get into a sexual mood, so I settled on identifying as gray a: I’m not totally uninterested; I can just go months without feeling any sexual attraction or interest, and I don’t know what triggers it. 

Nemo was great about me coming out. 

Nemo: We weren’t living together at that point, so Buddy told me he was asexual and we talked about it for a couple hours over dinner one night, went home—and kept talking about it later. 

Buddy: He was like, “Obviously, it’s you. Be who you’ve got to be.” My ex-husband was not like that so much. Nemo’s been really good about being supportive and accepting throughout. 

Nemo: I’d probably heard the terms asexual and gray asexual, but I don’t think I knew anyone who openly identified as either, so I learned about this through and with Buddy. When he asked me if I was OK with this, my reaction was, “I’m not going to get in the way. I want to learn more.” I tried to check in often about if Buddy was OK doing X, Y, and Z things and how we were doing as a couple. I’d say we had a few months of constant conversation to understand each other’s needs and feelings. The big thing for me was switching the equation in my head from “attraction equals sex and sex equals love” to “sex just being a plus whenever it happens for us.”  

It was almost a relief when Buddy came out, though. OK, it’s not my fault things aren’t happening and when we do have penetrative sex, it seems like Buddy’s not very into it. 

Buddy: I was always keen to make it clear that this had nothing to do with my feelings for Nemo. I actually like to think it was a nice switch that everything wasn’t always about sex with me, though. 

Nemo: Yeah, it was almost a relief to me that things didn’t always need to move on to sex for us. And our experiences actually have helped me realize I identify with being a side [someone who likes many types of sex—just not anal penetration]. I didn’t want or need it all the time. 

But I also knew from the beginning of our conversations that we were going to need to come up with a system so that I could still do and find things I wanted out of a relationship. And from the beginning, Buddy was very clear about not wanting to take anything away from me—and how, if I needed something he wasn’t up for, then I could find someone else to meet those needs. 

Buddy: I should clarify: We’re non-monogamous. We’re engaged, but our relationship is open.  

Nemo: I had a lot of hesitation around that!

Buddy: Yeah, I knew Nemo’s ex-husband too, and he claimed to be into open relationships, but he was very jealous, so if Nemo tried to do anything with someone else, his ex would be very opposed to the specifics of that situation, or he’d give Nemo a horrible guilt trip about it. I’m so divorced from sex that who Nemo fucks around with means nothing to me relationship-wise. As far as I’m concerned, that’s recreation. He’s having fun. It doesn’t affect us emotionally. 

Nemo: When I do want to go out and do something with someone else, we have a conversation about it. That’s more about me wanting to have check-ins, honestly. Buddy’s often fine with it. 

Buddy: I usually say, “Sure, have fun. Can you grab this from the store on the way home?”

We are still physically intimate, even though that intimacy is often not sexual. We cuddle. We also have a lot of similar hobbies and interests. Emotionally, we’re very in sync, too. Like, I tend to be more take-charge, and Nemo isn’t just content with that, a lot of times he wants me to take on that role. And when Nemo’s not happy, when he feels like he's not getting enough physical intimacy or anything else in our relationship, he tells me. I check in with him often, too, because sometimes I can’t read him—or people in general. And I don't ever want Nemo to feel like I'm not attracted to him or that I don't love him. I don't have the crutch that most people have of just saying that through sex. So I have to remember to show that through other aspects of our relationship, but I can be a little oblivious when I'm not doing enough to show that. We’ve had some uncomfortable but necessary conversations about one or both of us needing to make adjustments in our relationship.

However, while our relationship is sexually dry for the most part, I do have occasional… brushfires. [Laughs.] Nemo feels the need to check in—and I appreciate it—about whether I really want to have sex whenever we do move in that direction. Because if I initiate sex, it’s usually because I want to make someone else happy—and it’s OK when that’s the case. The only times I have issues with sex are when people try to push it on me. In the cases where I am in the mood, though, I occasionally have to say, “Don’t question it when it happens… If you want it too, just go with it. Because if we talk about where it’s coming from too long, it’s gonna fizzle out.” 

Nemo: Whenever Buddy does have those moments, I make sure I’m ready. Because I do enjoy having sexual moments with him, even if they aren’t very frequent in our relationship. 

Throughout our relationship and mutual exploration, I’ve just focused on keeping an open mind.