In my late 30’s, I finally managed to untangle myself from an abusive marriage in which a lot of fights over the last couple of years were about me not wanting to have sex often enough. I assumed that the high-anxiety, high-stress relationship was killing my libido, so after I’d taken a little bit to recalibrate myself after the divorce, I started dating again.

It went fine, I was reasonably “successful” (as such things are often measured from the male perspective), but every time I had sex, I left the event feeling distinctly unfulfilled. It’s hard to describe. It was something I thought would make me happy, but, at best, it left me kind of empty, and, at worst, I’d spend the next couple days fighting off anxiety.

So I decided to get my testosterone checked (it was normal) and get some therapy. At some point I realized that I hadn’t been on a date, much less had sex, in over a year, and I was fine with it, and, most importantly, that apparently wasn’t normal for guys. I noticed that all of my friends would complain up a storm if they hadn’t gotten laid in longer than about a week and a half, and that there were always these very confusing threads on AskReddit or AskMen where guys would say things like “I might be able to go 6 months without sex for a million dollars” or whatever. Whereas I was over here having to look back at old text messages just to find out exactly how long it had been since I last had sex, because I hadn’t been keeping track.

I had one more hookup (Feb. 2021), got the same kind of empty feelings afterwards, and decided that, while the act itself was enjoyable, all the complicated unwritten rules and rituals around sex just made it not worth it, especially considering I never got the happy-fuzzy-euphoric feelings everyone else talked about. I wasn’t getting the same payoff that all my other guy friends said they were getting, and instead of thinking they were full of hot air, I decided to take their word for it.

So after some research, I started identifying as sex-indifferent gray/ace.

It’s not a perfect label; I do experience sexual attraction, but it’s not powerful enough to be a motivating factor. Sex is kind of like mowing the lawn, in that it’s not awful, and sometimes it can be relaxing or enjoyable under the right circumstances, but I’m not leaving work early because I’m excited to mow the lawn when I get home. And if someone said “Hey, you never have to mow the lawn again!”, that would be pretty good news. Sometimes I miss the smell of freshly-cut grass, but on the whole, it’s just one more big thing I no longer have to worry about.

My current girlfriend is also ace, and it works out wonderfully. We cuddle, we hold hands, we laugh, and we never have to argue about sex. Life is much simpler. I’m reasonably happy.