Content warning, discussions about sex and personal sexuality

Have just been thinking about how much my approach to sex has changed in the past year, completely due to to my friends

I'm asexual, and have been severely sex repulsed for most of my life. I'm in a non-sexual relationship and even looking at depictions and conversations about sex have been difficult for me at best, along with the difficulties that come with being an asexual man in a world where men are expected to be hypersexual. I had just kind of accepted that my relationship with sex was always going to be a little contentious, and any sexual content in my life was going to lowkey trigger me

If you've seen me draw porn before this, it's always been a little hard for me. The best way I can describe it is dissociative. That's part of the reason I tended not to post it to my galleries, because I didn't want it sneaking up on me

I really love to write with my friends, though, and one particular story ended up with me playing a promiscuous character for the first time. This was a really important story for me, written with one of my best friends who I trust, and we developed the characters and world so well that also for the first time, I felt safe depicting (fairly softcore) adult content of this character

After that, sex crept into a few of my other stories with my friends, who were all super supportive and patient with me, and I got to appreciate having a new layer of characterisation to explore. It wasn't super erotic or anything, but I felt safe exploring it with them

And then I joined the Dungeon Meshi fandom scene, and I met my freaks

Honestly it was a little jarring at first because the server was so completely and entirely adult focused. Uncensored porn and sex discussions everywhere, I'd never been in an environment like that before, but they were so friendly and welcoming that I tried to push past my initial discomfort with it

Pretty soon it wasn't just a place to chat, I started really liking them. I wanted to be part of the experience with them, I wanted to make things that made them react like the rest of the art they were drawing and sharing. I started drawing porn. I got tons of positive feedback. Looking at my own adult art slowly stopped making my brain react like it was being attacked. Then it expanded to art by my friends

'Oh, this is exposure therapy,' I realised eventually, but it took me this long like a moron

Finally, I was writing and talking about sex with my partner of ten years for the first time

It's about five months since I met my freaks, and my life has completely changed. I still don't want to have sex, and probably never will, but an aspect of creativity has been opened to me. It's fixed a struggle I thought was going to be with me my entire life, I have a new outlook on my own art, and it's given me a bunch of new friends that are super important to me

It's not perfect, I still have a way to go before I'm entirely comfortable with sex and sexuality, but I'm really proud of the progress I've made, even if it wasn't intentional

I love my friends. Thanks for being a bunch of horny weirdos