How does one define asexuality, and do I qualify as such?

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Is asexuality a matter of not having ANY sexual drive or interest in any gender, or could it be an unwillingness to engage in sex with either gender?

You see, after a lifetime of relationship woes, I recently achieved some success with a woman. Had three dates, which was three times more dates than my previous records. I liked her, and sure sure seemed to like me, but we haven't seen each other for several weeks. Perhaps I waited too long to contact her after the third outing, not wanting to seem overeager. Then again, she just learned she has a great internship coming up, and maybe that has changed her outlook in establishing a relationship, since she will be going overseas for three months.

I'm okay with it though, because I know at least I am capable of some kind of success, which ameliorates my fears that I was utterly hopeless and unattractive to the opposite sex.

But it awakened something else in me. Up until now, I had what I thought were normal male urges. I'm certainly attracted to women, and I lust as is typical of anyone with a sex drive. And of course I thought I wanted to have sex.

But after three dates, when faced for the first time in my life with the prospect of an actual relationship that could culminate in coupling, I realized I don't think I want to have sex, despite the bestial part of my brain that desires it.

Partly it is because I don't think I ever wish to have a real relationship. For me, it is quite taxing enough to spend close time with another person once a week. I do not think I am capable of sustaining daily contact. I just value my own space and aloneness too much. For me, once a week companionship is plenty enough.

And because sex has so many risks: pregnancy, STDs obviously, as well as fundamentally altering the relationship. I fear sex would lead the other person to expect closer contact, when for me, it means an expression of love, and a physical attraction, but not necessarily an escalation of rate of contact. And of course there is the risk of it making the relationship "weird" as is so often said.

And I guess at the end of the day, there is so much about sex I find rather....rather unclean. I could never do most of the things that might be expected from a partner, and all the fluids and smells involved...makes me nauseous just to think about it. I doubt I could have physical relations with something prior to us both taking a thorough shower.

And sex is just so, so bestial to me. I even find pregnancy and birthing to be rather disgusting, I must honestly say. Like an alien cancerous growth...it is sickening, and seeing a pregnant woman makes me nauseated. I find it all so animalistic, which is why in one respect I always admired that book "Brave New World" because it shared my sensibility, and had done away with sex in favor of a clean, sterile biological engineering process for reproduction.

So when taken together, all these things, these cons, are enough in my mind to transcend the base, animal part of me that desires sex, pleasure, expressing of love physically. My mind is fully in control of my body, and able to transcend the body, and so I have resisted sex.

So does this make me asexual? Or a normal person who has made a rational choice to abstain, or (more disconcertingly) does this suggest sexual dysfunction? I don't feel that I am dysfunctional in my views, but I could see how others might, if I don't find sex appealing for all the negatives.

With asexuality that desire isn't there. You don't lust. It seems more that you're just not that into it or obsessed with it.

I'm the same. I'm not asexual but it seems to me kind of dirty and stupid and animalistic.

I'm not really sure but you described the way I feel almost perfectly. But I'd like to think it's at least possible for me to have a "normal" relationship with a woman, even if it would require a tremendous amount of factors to be "just right".

I think you're a normal person who has chosen to abstain.. Clearly, you have chosen 'cleanliness' over satisfying sexual urges; it's just not a priority or an obsession for you. Sex is also not a top priority for me either, I'm not asexual, but I find 'faults' that prevent me from obssesing over it..