Asexual

Asexual describes someone who feels little or no sexual attraction to other people. It is an orientation, in the same way that being gay or straight is, and it is the direction that orientation happens to point: nowhere in particular.

It says nothing about whether someone has sex, wants a relationship, falls in love, or enjoys any of it. Asexual people do all of those things in every combination. What they are describing is the absence of a particular pull toward other people, not the absence of a life.

Ace is the ordinary short form, and the ace spectrum covers the range: asexual at one end, greysexual and demisexual in between, allosexual, meaning everyone else, at the other. Romantic orientation is tracked separately and often written alongside it, as in asexual biromantic.

The two things asexual people hear most are that they have not met the right person and that something is medically wrong. Both are worth naming here because both are so common that many ace people spend years assuming one of them must be true before finding the word.

It intersects with being trans in a way that is rarely discussed: a trans person who is also asexual often finds their asexuality treated as a symptom of their transition, or their transition treated as a consequence of their asexuality. Neither reading is doing them a favour.

Asexual is not celibacy, and not a medical finding

Celibacy is a choice about behaviour, usually held for a reason and capable of ending. Asexuality is an orientation and is not a decision, which is why framing it as abstinence misses it entirely.

The medical reading is the other frequent one, and it does real damage. Low libido is a thing that exists and can have causes worth investigating. It is not the same as not experiencing sexual attraction to people, and treating an orientation as a symptom has sent a lot of ace people through tests looking for something that was never wrong.

Saying it well