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Published January 15, 2026

I Finally Learned a Word That Feels Right for Me: Asexual

A cartoonist comes to terms with her asexuality in an excerpt of the graphic memoir “Ace of Hearts.”

This is a chapter from the book Ace of Hearts: Lessons in Love from an Asexual Girl. You can buy a copy from Street Noise Books. 

Los Angeles, California, 2021. Caitlin stands on a porch looking at billowing smoke in the distance. "Basin's on fire again." Her partner Eric says, "Classic."Narration: "I'd gotten my act together surprisingly quickly. Eric had once been one of my outlets for recklessness. The difference was, I actually enjoyed being around him." Eric and Caitlin kiss, sending swirls of stars and galaxies around the background of the panel.Narration: "Now, we had a beautifully mundane domestic life." Eric: "You doing okay?" Caitlin: "No. I'm tired and I hate these stupid stairs." Eric looks at Caitlin, and then starts playfully wobbling, saying, “Whooahh! It’s the crazy stairs!” Narration: “With him, even the things that sucked were delightful.”Narration: “Things were very, very good. I was in grad school for journalism, I had a 4.0 and two internships.” Caitlin sits on the carpet with her cat. The cat is sitting up and raising her arms. Caitlin calls to Eric, “Check it out!” Narration: “And I had Eric and Winnie.” Eric: “Whoa, look at her go! Where’d you learn to dance like that, bubs?” Narration: “There was just one problem.” Caitlin and Eric sit in bed, Caitlin is looking at her phone. Eric, eyes suggestive, “Do you wanna…?” Caitlin: “Not tonight. Sorry.”Another night with Eric and Caitlin in bed. Caitlin is reading a book. Eric: “Do you wanna…?” Caitlin: “Not tonight. Sorry.” Eric and Caitlin are in bed. Caitlin adjusts her ponytail. Eric looks off to the side, “Do you wanna…?” Caitlin, pulling up the covers, “Not tonight. Sorry.” Eric: “Caitlin…you realize it’s been eight months, right?”Caitlin: “Oh my god. I guess it has. I’m sorry. I guess I just haven’t been thinking about it.” Eric: “It’s okay! It’s just…you used to be so into me.” Caitlin: “I’m still so into you! I love you!” Eric: “I know you do. It’s just…what happened? Is it me?” Caitlin: “No! I… I… I don’t know.” Caitlin tears up. Eric: “Hey, hey. Shh. We’ll figure it out, okay?”Caitlin is typing at her computer. Search bar: “How often should couples have sex” Search result: “Research correlates with having sex at least once a week with greater relationship outcomes.” A montage of different web pages: “Dear Sexless in Seattle, I’m gonna lay down a hard truth: if you and your partner are living together but you’re not having sex, you are no longer a couple: you are roommates.” “AITAH for considering divorce because my (28M) wife (27F) and I don’t have sex anymore? NTA. You have needs. She is being selfish.” “If it’s gotten to the point where you do not desire any sex at all with your partner, you may want to consider the possibility that you have fallen out of love with them. There is no shame in this; it happens to the best of us.” Caitlin, head in hands: “Oh god oh god oh god, get it together!” Narration: “And thus, I found myself once again on a mission to fix myself.” Search bar: “Why do I have no desire to have sex”Webpage titled “Causes for Low Sexual Desire”: “1. Medication: Some meds, such as SSRIs, can decrease sexual desire.” Caitlin says, “No meds…” “2. Stress: Stress from work, family, finances, etc. can make sex less appealing.” Caitlin says, “Not stressed…” “3. Relationship issues: if you’re unhappy in your relationship, you may lose interest in being intimate with your partner.” Caitlin says, “Ha. Very unlikely…” “4. Aging: Many people lose interest in sex as they reach old age.” Caitlin says, “Even more unlikely…” A list titled, “Things to investigate (in order of desirability)”: “1. Hormonal imbalance, 2. Leftover trauma from past abuse, 3. Asexuality” Caitlin: “I landed on three possibilities.”Caitlin: “My interest in having sex is completely gone. I feel like I could go the rest of my life without it and be completely fine.” Caitlin is sitting on the table in a doctor’s office, “So I’d like to get my hormones checked.” Doctor: “We can absolutely order you some labs. But I will say, because of your age and good health, it is unlikely that this is hormone related. Women usually just need to find a way to reignite their desires. My recommendation is erotica.”Caitlin reads from a book titled “His Good Girl,” “With a vigorous warmth, his giant member entered my slit, quivering with want. No, not want. Need.” Caitlin closes the book, “Oh. My. God.” Search bar: “Erotica that is not cringe.” Caitlin stares vacantly at her computer until it’s dark, and she falls asleep.Narration: “Eric worked a job that would sometimes send him away overnight. I would sometimes use those nights to do some exploring.” Caitlin lights a candle, reaches down out of the panel. Her attention drifts. “Oh my god this is so boring.”Narration: “I switched it up with some fantasies. They generally involved two people, secretly into each other, and I would watch as romantic tension slowly built up between them. But whenever I got to the point where the sex was supposed to happen, I completely lost interest.” Caitlin: “What the fuck is wrong with me?”Narration: “Those nights would end in the same way every time. Drowning in self-hatred until I cried myself to sleep.” Caitin with her eyes shut into a pillow, large words in the dark around her: “Will never please anyone freak unworthy of love broken prude frigid.” Narration: “Maybe I was destined to be like this forever. Unless, of course, my hormone test could tell me anything.” Caitlin’s phone buzzes. Email: “Caitlin, your blood work results are in. Your hormone levels are all within the normal range. Click here to see the results. Please reach out if you have any questions.” Caitlin: “Fuck.”The notebook with things to investigate. “1. Hormonal imbalance” is scratched out. The camera focuses on “2. Leftover trauma from past abuse.” Narration: “Even though Dr. Barnett had been dismissive and unhelpful back in my college days, I hadn’t written off therapy. I had actually seen multiple therapists over the years to address what happened. I really felt like I had healed.” Caitlin sits in a therapist’s waiting room.Narration: “But I definitely hadn’t. I’d never learned how to fully trust anyone I had sex with. Not even Eric.” Caitlin is thinking while she lays back in bed, “Oh no. Is he going to touch me there? I told him that area is a trigger. Maybe he forgot. Should I remind him? Would that kill the mood? What if he does it anyway and then claims he forgot but he didn’t? But he’s such a nice guy. Patrick seemed like a nice guy too. God, please don’t, please don’t—” Eric: “You doing okay?” Caitlin: “Doing great!”Therapist sitting in a comfortable chair, “Well, let’s start with your worldview. Traumatic experiences like the one you had can really shape how you see the world. How do you feel your worldview has been shaped by what happened?” Caitlin: “Well, this may or may not be true, but I’ve believed for a long time that, in order to be loved and accepted, I have to completely deny a huge part of myself.”Therapist: “And what part is that?” Caitlin crosses her arms and looks down, pausing, “I don’t… just… never mind. I don’t want to talk about that right now.” Caitlin tears up, the therapist passes her tissues.Caitlin sits in a cafe drinking coffee with a friend. Caitlin: “How are things with Steph?” Caitlin’s friend: “They’re pretty good! Although, I actually wonder sometimes if she might be asexual.” Caitlin: “Really? Why?” Caitlin’s friend: “She just has such little interest in sex. Which is so hard for me, ‘cause I am so attracted to her, dude.”Caitlin’s friend: “Like seriously. I might actually be a lesbian.” Caitlin: “Well, I don’t have to tell you this, but, the best thing you can do for her is to be gentle and patient.” Caitlin’s friend, “Of course. I’m doing my best.” Caitlin glances away, and then down at her coffee. Caitlin: “Did I ever tell you that I used to wonder if I was asexual?” Caitlin’s friend: “No, I don’t think so!” Caitlin: “Yeah. When I was in my early teens.” Young Caitlin in a hoodie sits on her bed.Caitlin: “I remember reading about it on the internet and thinking, I resonate with that. Sex was just nowhere near my mind until… you know… someone forced it to be.” Caitlin is talking to her therapist. “And I guess I feel pretty “asexual” these days too. But I can’t actually be asexual, right? Like, that whole “hoe phase” I had in college, but what happened to that version of me?”Caitlin in a dreamscape chases after fragments of herself. She can’t catch them. She falls to her knees. Behind her, space with galaxies and planets approaches.Galaxies and planets come closer to her. In the real world, Caitlin in bed turns away from Eric. Eric reaches towards her. Space totally engulfs Caitlin; she’s entirely alone.Caitlin: “There’s a real possibility that I might be asexual. I still need to figure it out, but, if I am… Basically, babe, I need you to be prepared for me to leave.” Eric: “I don’t understand. Why would you leave me?” Caitlin: “Didn’t you hear me? I said I might be asexual.” Eric: “Well, what does asexual mean, exactly?”Caitlin: “It means… I wouldn’t be able to give you what you need.” Eric: “What I need is you. Here. In my life.” Caitlin: “You’re being delusional.” Eric: “Caitlin, you’re my best friend in the whole world. I love you.” Caitlin: “Well, sometimes love isn’t enough.” Eric: “Of course it’s enough! Come here.” Caitlin hugs Eric, crying. Caitlin is alone in space, crying.Narration: “I was frustrated by Eric’s naivety. Didn’t he know that he has needs? Didn’t he know that he would resent me someday? So what if he loved me right now? At this rate, that love was doomed to fade.”Caitlin sits on the couch with her cat watching television. Television: “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.” “Me too.” “Kissing noises, heavy breathing.” Caitlin: “Bro. That’s like the seventh one this episode. I can’t. I just can’t.” Caitlin gets up and walks away.Journal entry dated 10/17/21: “I don’t think I understand sex. Like, at all. I don’t understand why everyone is so obsessed with it. It feels like everyone is speaking a language I don’t know, but that I’m expected to know even though there’s no way for me to learn it. I don’t understand the need to do it regularly, or at all really unless you want a baby. I always thought we were all exaggerating about sex, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t think I know what it means to be horny. I don’t understand why people say “intimacy” when they mean sex. Just say sex. Intimacy can come in so many forms. That’s what I crave. Intimacy. Emotional and intellectual intimacy with the one I love. Sex has nothing to do with it. I crave intimacy, not sex.” Caitlin flops on her back next to her journal, “There has to be something I’m missing.”Narration: “I thought I knew what asexuality was. I thought it meant being completely unsexual in every way. But that night, I humbled myself by searching,” search bar: “What is asexuality,” narration: “For the first time since I was a teenager. I read everything I could.” Search result: “An asexual is someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction to anybody of any gender. It is important to distinguish between sexual attraction and other forms of attraction, such as romantic, aesthetic, and sensual. Some asexuals choose to be in sexual relationships, but many do not.”Search bar: “What does sexual attraction feel like.” Montage of search results: “When you feel sexually attracted to someone, you should feel your body temperature literally rise. You might even start to feel thirsty.” “It may feel as if there is a kind of magnetism pulling you towards the other person.” “You know how you feel when you’re really hungry and you see a nice, juicy burger? That’s how sexual attraction feels.” Narration: “I found none of these descriptions to be relatable.” Caitlin: “Holy shit.”Narration: “My first reaction was pure bliss. I had spent so much of my life feeling out of place, trying to make myself fit while I died inside. Now, I had a word for what I was, and that word was not freak or broken or prude or failure.” Stars outside Caitlin’s balcony spell, “asexual.”Narration: “But then came the grief. Was there a universe where I had been properly taught about asexuality in my youth? Where all of that total bullshit could have been avoided? I mourned that life.”Narration: “But this was my life.” Caitlin reads on the couch. The door opens, Eric comes home from work. Caitlin kisses Eric, and then they start talking.Caitlin and Eric sit on the couch talking. Eric: “I love you so much. And I am so proud of you.” The galaxies and planets surround Caitlin, but Eric is there too.Caitlin, tearing up but gently smiling, hugs Eric against a background of stars. Narration, “And this, goddammit, was love.”

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