Don’t worry, anon, it took me a long time to properly understand it as well.

Asexuality’s most clear and consistent definition is ‘the lack of sexual attraction to other gender(s)’. Basically, it means that they can be romantically attracted to other genders (’I want to date you and be in love with you’), they can be aesthetically attracted to other genders (’Long hair on guys is extremely attractive to me’), but they cannot be sexually attracted to other genders (’I think you’re sexy and I get horny at the sight of you, let’s fuck’).

The idea behind the statements that asexuals can have sex or masturbate is because most asexuals have the body health to experience pleasure from sexual acts. For example, an asexual would not want to sleep with someone because they find them sexy, but because it feels good to have sex. Same with masturbation. Additionally, some asexuals (often female asexuals) will have sex so they can become pregnant and have a child, because you obviously don’t need to have sexual attraction to your partner to want a family.

And, being in love is related to romantic attraction (homoromantic, heteroromantic, biromantic, panromantic, and aromantic). This describes whom you feel romantically attracted to, whom you want to date. A homoromantic female asexual would want to date fellow females, but would not feel horny around them.

That being said, most asexuals are not interested in sex at all, and some are not interested in masturbation. Most asexuals also have a low sex drive and libido and wouldn’t want to take part in sexual activity anyway. This is also why many asexuals prefer to date other asexuals, because allosexuals (that being any non-asexual identity) sometimes feel incompatible with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with them, or asexuals feel pressured into having sex.

All in all, asexuality comes down to sexual attraction, and libido is not related to it. An asexual can be interested in people romantically, they can enjoy sexual activity for pleasure or for family purposes, they can dislike all of the above and prefer to just cuddle - it is up to the individual person.

theasexualityblog Did I explain this well?