"When you don’t have the words to describe something, it’s impossible to imagine it," the author writes.

I was 34 and married to a man when it first hit me: I should have bloomed by now.

In high school, I had always been way too into waiting for marriage to have sex, even though I wasn’t particularly religious or conservative. I just thought, Well, a rule’s a rule! You heard what our nervous P.E. teacher said, folks! Keep it in your pants!

As I got older, fewer and fewer of my friends seemed as excited about abstinence as I was. It bewildered me — what was so great about sex? I spent so little time thinking about it that it really didn’t occur to me until I was well into my marriage that maybe there was something much bigger going on.

Several heart-wrenching therapy sessions later, I admitted to my therapist, “I’ve never really felt the desire to have sex with men.”

“What about women?” My therapist asked. Her question almost confused me. I suddenly realised that even though I had always identified as bisexual, I wasn’t actually picturing having sex with women I had crushes on either.

Then she asked the question I wish I had known to ask myself years earlier: “Do you think you could be asexual?”

It was like she had unlocked the door to a word I didn’t even realise I knew but that I had been waiting to hear my entire life.

In the most basic terms, an asexual person experiences little to no sexual attraction — they are not sexually attracted to men or women or any other gender. Sexual attraction is different from romantic attraction, and your sexual orientation can be different from your romantic orientation. For instance, I’m romantically attracted to all genders (biromantic) but sexually attracted to none of them (asexual or “ace”).

I always thought I was bisexual because I wanted to date men and women, but wanting to date them and wanting to have sex with them are two completely different things. And I never felt especially driven to do the latter. Flirting and kissing? Yes, please. Taking it to the bedroom? How about we see what’s on Netflix instead.

You’ll notice I didn’t say being asexual means being celibate or requires not having sex. Often people think the two go hand in hand, but that’s where they get us wrong. Asexuality exists along a spectrum. Some aces are not interested in sex with anyone, including themselves. Some might not be sexually attracted to others but may still have sex with a partner because of the connection it creates or nurtures. Some, who identify as demisexuals, are only interested in sex with someone once they’ve formed a strong emotional bond with them. But the thing that all aces have in common is that sexual attraction does not exist or does not exist in the way that it does for allosexual people (those who do experience sexual attraction to others).

When you don’t have the words to describe something, it’s impossible to imagine it. When I was struggling with my sexuality as a teenager, I at least knew that bisexuality existed. But I never knew it was possible to not be sexually attracted to anyone, so I just willed myself to try harder. I was at war with myself — I wanted to feel the desire I saw characters in movies and on TV experience, the way I thought I was supposed to, but my body just didn’t.

Dating was a minefield of fending off the sloppy bedroom invitation of a frat boy who I thought was “very interested” in hearing about acting........

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