construct and becomes a mythical, imagined, fabled thing. My best magic trick so far! W hile slowly making this discovery and reclaiming my virginity over the years, I also uncovered my asexuality. I ght with this label internally every day because I don’t want my sexuality to be deened by the lack of something, but it really does t me. I don’t experience sexual attraction. It took me a while to realize, from when I started questioning my straightness as a teen until the summer of 2014 when I came to identify with the label openly. I negotiated labels and how they would t with my feelings and how they came out of my mouth after swishing them around for a while, like wine, tasting how it was right or not quite. I was demi, then grey, but also queer, and then, near September, I adopted asexual. It still feels odd to call myself that, because I’ve never before in my life considered it something that was legitimate or even known that it existed. But it does, and somehow, I’ve always been this and I’ve always known, in my heart of hearts. Society and culture make it complicated to unravel our own truths. It helps to have the words to deene ourselves, though, and sometimes it takes a while to nd those. So it took a while.
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