Cake IS Better Than Sex – Mog D’Souza

Cake is Better Than Sex – How the Covid-19 Quarantine helped me realise I’m Asexual!

I was 21 when I first heard the term asexual on a comedy show. It was a throwaway joke inserted just for laughs at the end of the episode, but for some reason, it stuck with me. I didn’t do much about it, apart from doing a brief google search and finding out that asexual means having little to no sexual attraction to other people of any gender. It struck a chord with me since up until that point, I had never been in a relationship or kissed anyone, and frankly, never cared that I hadn’t had those experiences either. Being sexually intimate with someone wasn’t just far-fetched, it wasn’t even an idea in my head. That should have been the first sign for me, but the thing about growing up in a conservative brown household is that you’re not really encouraged to have these thoughts either at 21. It’s fairly common in a lot of South Asian households to get a late head start with dating and having sex. So I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and foolishly thought it was just a matter of time and age that would show better results in my sex drive and desire to start dating people. Well, that was five years ago, and little has changed. I’m now one month away from turning 27 and I have finally come to terms with the fact that I am in fact, asexual. Quarantine helped a lot with that. Turns out age and time did nothing for my sex drive, which has stayed at an impressive non-existent low.

So here’s the thing, finally realising I am asexual wasn’t a huge shock. I had a lot of helpful tells. One, going on dates was and still is a chore. It shouldn’t be such a relief when a date cancels or it doesn’t work out. Having crushes on people that are too far out of my reach, like a celebrity, so that it’s literally impossible to be in a relationship with them. I guess the biggest one was finding out that non-ace people actually feel a desire to have sex with someone they find attractive or hot, and that it’s not just something that is exaggerated in movies or novels. Sounds pretty funny now but it genuinely never occurred to me before. There’s a lot more but the real oh moment happened when I randomly came across a video that quite literally did it for me. It was a spoken word piece on being an asexual romantic by Sriti Jha, a popular Hindi TV actor. I’ve watched Sriti on my television screen every day, vis a vis my mother and her love for Indian TV serials. I’ve always associated Sriti with her character of the self righteous bahu, the one that can do no wrong. She plays a character that is so heteronormative, it would have never crossed my mind to think of her as asexual. So it wasn’t just a shock to watch that video, it felt like she was speaking to me. I cried after I was done watching the video; I felt seen like never before. This is why, more than anything, representation matters. I didn’t think brown asexual women existed, which is obviously quite stupid in theory, but felt like my reality. It’s still difficult for me to come across brown ace women in person. I’ve also been spending a lot of time listening to Dr. Pragati Singh who is the founder of the first online community for Indian asexuals, called Indian Aces on Facebook. Dr. Singh has pioneered a lot of the grassroots work in India to generate awareness on asexuality, and has done a great job at creating a safe space for brown asexual people online. When I hear women like Sriti and Dr. Singh talk so openly and proudly of their asexuality, I’m comforted by the fact that I’m not an oddity but instead just a part of a community that is largely hidden. Much like a lot of brown LGTBQIA communities sadly are.

Contrary to belief, we are not robotic people who don’t feel any emotions or are incapable of having sex ever. It’s a common misconception that asexuals are non-sexual people that never masturbate, but libido and sexual attraction are two very different things. It’s also a misconception that asexuals are incapable of finding people attractive. It’s weird that asexuals have to clarify this because we’re only human after all. I have a long list of pretty men and women I dream about all the time. I love dreaming about spending quality time with that person, maybe holding hands, sharing a laugh. Who knows, maybe after some time, I’d even be open to having sex. There’s no shame in not wanting sex at 25 but feeling ready for it at 40. Or not wanting it ever. Being asexual isn’t a static experience because sexuality by itself isn’t static. Asexuality can be fluid and, on a spectrum, hence the term ‘ace spec’. There’s a myriad of ways one can experience their asexuality and they are all valid.

My lovely brown aces, if you’re reading this and you’re still figuring out whether you are asexual and you’re not sure, I hope you feel seen and heard. There’s something wonderful in realizing you’re not alone in what you’re feeling. That you’re not weird or odd for reaching a certain age and not ever feeling the urge to have sex with someone. That you don’t have to push yourself to do anything if you don’t want to because that is a very valid feeling. And if all you ever want is to just have a slice of cake, then do it. Because cake is better than sex any day.

By Mog D’Souza