01x03 - Not Having Sex

[bunniefuu]

.. and stuff is just an awful lot of hassle.

Ha-ha! It depends how satisfied you are sorting yourself out.

Sex is like any other addiction.

You know, you don't need it.

If you're pleased with your hand then that's fine.

And if that satisfies you, that's fine too.

I don't look like I'm celibate.

I look like I go like a rabbit.

But I don't actually, because... I have done.

As you get older and older, the sex gets less and less and less.

I have had to learn to make sex irrelevant to my life.

I don't think I've ever really been in a situation where I could have lost my virginity.

Why should I feel obliged to go and try something that I just feel indifferent about?

Even repulsed by?

If people think it's weird now, because they do, I think the longer you leave it the worse it'll get.

I will go to my grave wishing I'd had more sex.

You think, "I'd rather stay in and have a nice cup of coffee and go to bed now."

Guys seem to be more shocked if you're still a virgin or whatever.

But other girls seem to have their own theories on it or just think there's something wrong with you and you're a bit strange and they wonder whether, like, you're frigid or something like that.

I've had people say that I was like a bar for everyone.

Thought I was better than everyone.

It's just a strange thing. Why would they care about me?

I think the fact that even throughout university I didn't have sex. I felt like it wasn't for me.

Like I was just numb and took it as an emptiness in me, that I wasn't part of the social norm.

I wasn't part of this sexual world.

I wasn't a sexual being. I wasn't a sexual creature.

And that did sort of halt me for years and I always thought it was because, like, I grew up not really knowing who I was or feeling part of everything.

If I had known I was asexual at 16, 15, life would have been so much easier.

I would have saved myself so many questions and so much doubt over whether there was something wrong with me, like, hormonally or psychologically.

Director: Did you really feel that?

There was something wrong?

I really did. Yeah.

Because when, you know, 99% of the people around you feel the exact opposite of the way you do you think, well, logically, the problem is mine.

It's like I sort of blame myself.

Director: Why do you blame yourself?

I don't know. I think about it sometimes.

Having flashbacks of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, you know.

I'm hetero-romantic so I do fancy people of the opposite gender but I basically just want everything in a relationship minus the sex.

It's as simple as that.

How do you cement a relationship without knowing each other on every level?

Some people don't have sex at all, do they?

How do you connect with someone so completely without knowing what they're like completely?

Some people...

Cos sex is a big deal.

I've only had one major relationship and that was with someone who wasn't asexual.

I think sometimes it was frustrating to know that there was a limit as to how far we could go.

But, you know, personally, I like to think I'm quite assertive and I say,

"Too bad. This is where I draw the line."

I don't do a**l sex. Like, I've tried it once.

It was too painful, it was absolute agony.

But I remember going through it for the guy I first slept with because I felt like I needed to try a**l sex cos that's what gays do.

Up to about 10 years ago, sex was very important to me and I was very interested in it and I wanted it and I couldn't get it and it was awful.

So I told myself, "Stop wanting what you can't have."

And almost overnight, my whole attitude, my whole life changed.

And I was freed from the pressure of wanting and needing and not getting.

I am celibate but celibate sounds religious.

It sounds boring and it puts you straight in a box.

I like to see it more as centred and choosy.

I'd say now... I dream about sex. It's very good but... I don't know whether I'm interested in it now.

I can dream about it and get excited but I think it's been gone over two years now.

Two years. Maybe three.

My two great sins are that I'm articulate and I have a personality.

You know, men don't like that.

There are some who react very, very badly to me because I sound like the worst teacher of their darkest nightmares.

Director: I think you seem really nice.

I think I'm a perfectly nice person but a lot of people find me intimidating.

I mean, why? I'm nearly 60 and I've not had sex since 2000 by choice.

"God! 2000! Don't you miss it?"

Well, I have a vibrator.

I can make myself come.

You know, what do I miss about it?

I think it's really, really important for girls, particularly, to recognise; keep your knickers on, always.

People always kind of assume that because you haven't tried it, haven't gone out and explored it for yourself, that you don't know any better.

You don't know what you're missing. I just know.

In the same way that I know I don't really want to go jumping into, like, a swimming pool full of hedgehogs any time soon!

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like the experience.

Director: What do you think sex is like?

Err...

Oh, God. I don't know.

I don't know, like...

You see stuff on telly and in films and things like that and it's... it's... not real.

I've been there, done it, worn the T-shirt, got chlamydia, been infertile.

And I've chosen to abstain from it purely and simply because every time I go out there it's so ugly.

You know, I don't want to be standing in a bar with some pissed bloke and me not knowing what I'm doing either.

Having a conversation about my body and having sex in the moment and feeling like crap the next day.

♪ Why don't you shut the door ♪
♪ And close the curtains ♪
♪ Cos you're not going anywhere ♪
♪ He's coming up the stairs ♪
♪ And in a moment ♪
♪ He'll want to see your underwear ♪
♪ I couldn't stop it now ♪
♪ There's no way to get out ♪
♪ He's standing far too near ♪
♪ How the hell did you get here ♪
♪ Seminaked in somebody else's room ♪
♪ I'd give my whole life to see it ♪
♪ Just you ♪
♪ Stood there ♪
♪ Only in your underwear ♪
♪ If fashion is your trade ♪
♪ Then when you're naked ♪
♪ I guess you would be unemployed, yeah ♪
♪ Once it's underway ♪
♪ There's no escaping ♪
♪ The fact that you're a girl and he's a boy ♪
♪ I couldn't stop it now ♪
♪ There's no way to get out ♪
♪ You're standing far too near ♪
♪ How the hell did you get here ♪
♪ Seminaked in somebody else's room ♪
♪ I'd give my whole life to see it ♪
♪ Just you ♪
♪ Stood there ♪
♪ Only in your underwear... ♪

Director: Does losing your virginity, the idea of it, scare you?

As it does for a lot of people?

I don't really know.

I guess a little bit but then just because of things that I just don't know. Like, should I tell them?

Do I, like, take off my glasses?

And I can't see anything!

Just things like that.

There's that self-consciousness, that's there now, you know, where I think sex at its best is abandoned and kind of like on a bit of a higher plane.

It doesn't always have to be.

It can be really dirty and really, you know, like...

It doesn't have to be, like, tender. God help us, no!

You know, just kind of something that you're both into.

♪ This is what he wanted last night ♪
♪ So why is it so hard ♪
♪ For you to touch him ♪
♪ For you to give yourself to him ♪
♪ Oh, Jesus ♪
♪ I couldn't stop it now ♪
♪ There's nowhere to get out ♪
♪ He's standing far too near ♪
♪ How the hell did you get here ♪
♪ Seminaked in somebody else's room ♪
♪ I'd give my whole life to see it ♪
♪ Just you ♪
♪ Stood there... ♪

Director: Are you happy?

Do I look happy to you?

I never expected to be this happy.

You know, I'm now in my mid-50s, I got more energy, I've got more ideas, I've got more ambition than I've ever had before.

Director: You look happy enough.

I'm the happiest...

More happy than you could ever imagine.

Sex is... I mean, I am not... huh!

I am not now anti-sex.

It's just... it's wonderful and it's great fun and it's dirty and it's naughty and it's ridiculous and it's for other people.

It's not for me. Not any more.

And that's fine, because I'm busy.

I've found my purpose.

Now my purpose is to save the world.

Because somebody's got to do it.

♪ Oh, yeah ♪
♪ I want to see you ♪
♪ Want to see you only in your underwear. ♪

You can literally change a person's life in an instant by telling them that it's OK they feel like that and they shouldn't feel ashamed of not wanting what everyone else wants.