Laura: Our culture tells us one story: that to be human is to desire. But what if an estimated three million Americans feel no sexual desire for others at all? They aren't broken, sick, or repressed. They just have an invisible orientation. Sophia: Whoa, three million. That's not a fringe number; that’s more than the entire population of Chicago. And the idea that they're just 'invisible' is... chilling. It implies we're all walking around with this massive blind spot about how other people experience the world. Laura: It's a huge blind spot, and it's exactly the world Julie Sondra Decker opens up in her award-winning book, The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality. What's incredible is that Decker was an activist for years before this, even describing herself as 'nonsexual' before finding the community online. She wrote the first draft in just three weeks, pouring years of personal experience and advocacy into it. Sophia: Three weeks? That’s not writing; that’s a download. It sounds less like she constructed an argument and more like she was finally letting out a truth she’d been holding onto for decades. So, let's start there. If it's not being broken or sick, what is asexuality, really?

Laura: That's the fundamental question the book tackles first. At its core, asexuality is defined as an orientation characterized by a lack of sexual attraction to any gender. It's not about behavior, like celibacy, which is a choice to abstain from sex. It’s about the internal experience of attraction itself. Sophia: Okay, hold on. 'Lack of attraction.' That's a tricky concept because people's sex drives are all over the map. How do you distinguish between being asexual and just having a low libido or not being in the mood? I think a lot of people would hear 'lack of sexual attraction' and just think, 'Oh, you're just not that into sex.' Laura: That's the most common confusion, and Decker addresses it head-on. Libido is your body's general sex drive—it's an itch. Sexual attraction is who you want to scratch that itch with. An asexual person might have a libido, or they might not. But what they don't have is that directional pull, that "I want to have sex with that specific person" feeling. Sophia: That’s a great way to put it. The itch versus the direction. Laura: Exactly. And the emotional weight of this misunderstanding is immense. Decker shares her own story, which is so powerful. She talks about being fourteen and having her first boyfriend. She knew the script—you're supposed to want to kiss him. So she did, because she felt obligated, but she felt nothing. It was just an action, completely disconnected from any internal desire. Sophia: Oh, I know that feeling, just maybe in different contexts. The pressure to feel something that everyone else seems to be feeling, and the quiet panic when you realize you don't. It's incredibly isolating. Laura: It is. And it gets worse. Her second boyfriend, at sixteen, broke up with her because he said a relationship without sexual interest wasn't a real relationship. Then, in her late teens and early twenties, she was bombarded with 'concerned comments' from people. They told her she wasn't normal, that she needed to get 'checked out,' that she'd never be happy. Sophia: That's brutal. It's one thing to feel different on the inside, but it's another to have the outside world constantly telling you that your internal reality is a flaw that needs fixing. It sounds exhausting. Laura: It is. And it leads to another huge myth the book dismantles: the 'late bloomer' argument. People love to say, "Oh, you just haven't met the right person yet," or "You'll grow out of it." Sophia: Right, the ultimate condescending pat on the head. As if your identity is just a waiting room for 'normalcy.' But I can see why people say it. In a world that equates maturity with sexuality, asexuality can look like a developmental delay. Laura: Precisely. But Decker includes this fantastic, sharp-witted quote from a 39-year-old asexual Muslim woman named Laura. She says, "I always laugh when I see these claims. I’m thirty-nine years old. It stopped being plausible a very long time ago that I could just be a ‘late bloomer.’ Yes, there are asexuals in their thirties. We exist. Our asexuality exists." Sophia: I love that. The simple, powerful assertion: "We exist." It's not a phase. It's not immaturity. It's a stable, mature state. It's an orientation, just like being gay or straight. Laura: And that's the core takeaway. It's a description of who you are, not a problem to be solved. As one person in the book says, you're asexual if you think the label fits and is useful for you. It's about self-identification, not a diagnosis. Sophia: That makes so much sense. But it opens up a whole other can of worms. If there's no sexual attraction, what do relationships even look like? Is it just... elevated friendship?

Laura: That is the perfect question, and it leads to what I think is the most mind-expanding concept in the book: the split attraction model. Our society bundles romantic love and sexual desire into one package. If you love someone, you must want to have sex with them. The book uncouples them. Sophia: It separates them? How does that work? Laura: It proposes that romantic attraction and sexual attraction are two different axes. You can experience one without the other. So, an asexual person might feel a deep, powerful romantic pull toward someone—wanting to go on dates, be emotionally intimate, build a life together—but feel zero sexual attraction. Sophia: Wow. So you could be heteroromantic and asexual? Meaning you're romantically attracted to the opposite gender, but not sexually. Or homoromantic and asexual? Laura: Exactly. Or biromantic, panromantic... or even aromantic, which means you don't experience romantic attraction either. This creates a much richer, more accurate vocabulary for human connection. It gives people a language for feelings they've had all along but couldn't name. Sophia: That's fascinating. It’s like you love the music but have no interest in the lyrics. Or you want to be someone's co-pilot for life, but you have no desire to get into the mechanics of the engine. The partnership is the point, not the physical act. Laura: That's a beautiful analogy. And the pain of not having this language is so real. The book shares a story about an asexual adolescent who, to fit in, just lies about having crushes. Their friends are all talking about who's hot, and this kid is just... making it up. They're describing someone's Star Wars t-shirt or their book report on Huck Finn as the reason for their 'crush' because they don't understand the language of sexual appeal. Sophia: Oh, that's heartbreaking. They're performing an identity to survive socially. They're translating their own feelings—which might be aesthetic appreciation or intellectual admiration—into a language their peers will accept. But the whole time, they must feel like a spy in the house of love. Laura: A spy in the house of love, I love that. And it's why this distinction is so critical. It validates their actual feelings. You don't have to pretend. You can say, "I'm panromantic and asexual." You can have a name for your experience. And the data backs this up. A 2011 survey of asexual-spectrum people found a huge diversity in romantic orientations. About 44% were romantically attracted to men, 32% to women, but nearly 20% identified as aromantic. Sophia: So a significant chunk of the community isn't interested in romantic relationships at all. What does deep connection look like for them? Laura: It can take many forms, but the book introduces the concept of a 'queerplatonic relationship.' It's a partnership that's more intense and committed than what we typically think of as friendship, but it isn't romantic. It's a primary life partnership built on a platonic bond. Sophia: That challenges everything we're taught about the relationship hierarchy, where your romantic partner is supposed to be your 'everything.' This suggests your 'person' doesn't have to be a romantic or sexual partner. Laura: It completely flattens that hierarchy. It says that deep, committed, life-affirming love can exist in many forms, and we do ourselves a disservice by only valuing one of them. It validates the idea that friendship can be the central, most important relationship in a person's life. Sophia: And having that language, that validation, must be everything. Because without it, you're just left with that feeling of being broken.

Laura: And having that language is everything. Because for so long, this was all happening in isolation. The feeling of being broken wasn't just internal; society reinforced it at every turn. Decker uses this incredibly potent line: "If everyone treats you like you’re broken, you may eventually crack." Sophia: That line hits hard. It speaks to the corrosive power of social pressure. It's not just about feeling misunderstood; it's about being actively damaged by that misunderstanding. Laura: Absolutely. And that's why the shift from isolation to community is such a pivotal part of this story. For decades, people like Julie Sondra Decker were on their own. But then, in the early 2000s, a man named David Jay, who had felt that same profound isolation, did something revolutionary. He created a website. Sophia: A website? In the early 2000s, that was like building a digital lighthouse in the middle of an uncharted ocean. Laura: It was. He founded AVEN, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network. And suddenly, thousands of people who thought they were the only one in the world found each other. They found a name for their experience, they found validation, and they found a community. It was a turning point. They went from being invisible individuals to a visible collective. Sophia: So Decker's book is essentially a portable version of that community, a tool for visibility. It's interesting because while the book is highly rated and won a Lambda Literary Award, some readers have found its tone to be more like advocacy than neutral education. Hearing this story, that makes perfect sense. It's not just an academic text; it's a survival guide and a call to arms. Laura: It is absolutely an advocacy tool. Decker is clear that the book was written because, as she puts it, "everyone will benefit from knowing that asexuality exists." It's not just for asexual people. It's for their parents, their friends, their partners, their therapists, and for society at large. Sophia: Okay, so if that's the case, what is the one thing that allies—or just anyone who wants to be a decent human being—should take away from this? If they remember nothing else, what's the key? Laura: It's surprisingly simple. The single most important thing you can do is acknowledge that asexuality exists. That's it. You don't have to be an expert on the split attraction model or queerplatonic partnerships. You just have to accept that it's a real, valid human orientation. Sophia: Just acknowledge it. Why is that simple act so powerful? Laura: Because the primary form of discrimination asexual people face is erasure. It's the constant message that they don't exist, or if they do, they're just confused, sick, or lying. By simply saying, "I see you, I believe your experience is real," you dismantle the very foundation of that invalidation. You stop treating them like a puzzle to be solved and start treating them like a person to be respected.

Sophia: Wow. It really reframes the entire conversation from 'What's wrong with you?' to 'What is your experience?' It’s a shift from diagnosis to dialogue. Laura: Exactly. And that's the profound gift of this book. It's not just about teaching you a new set of vocabulary words. It's about fundamentally altering your perception of human connection. It forces you to see that the map of love and desire we've been given is woefully incomplete. There are whole continents of experience out there that we've simply ignored. Sophia: It's a reminder that our own experience of the world isn't the universal experience. We assume everyone operates on the same sexual and romantic software, but some people are running a completely different, equally valid operating system. Laura: A different operating system! I love that. And once you realize that, you can't un-realize it. The book's final message is one of trust. Trust asexual people to describe their own feelings, even if the answer is "none of the above." Sophia: That feels like a lesson that extends far beyond just this topic. Trust people to be the experts on their own lives. It's such a simple, yet radical, act of respect. Laura: It is. And it makes you wonder, what other 'invisible' experiences do we overlook every day, simply because they don't fit the narratives we're comfortable with? Sophia: That's a powerful question to sit with. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What did this conversation spark for you? Join the discussion on our social channels and let us know. Laura: This is Aibrary, signing off.