Valentine's Day is more than 'just a holiday' for me

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day.

For decades, this day held deep trauma for me. But today, it serves as a steady reminder of how far I’ve come and how proud I am to be the person I am.

I talk a lot about being asexual and polyamorous, but usually, only my close friends know the story behind the discovery. The "lore," as the kids say.

This is my first Valentine’s Day where I’ve chosen to celebrate solo. I decided on a deeply sensory experience: a cold plunge. It wasn't just a way to celebrate my body and all it can endure, but a way to continue giving myself experiences that are nerve-wracking yet consensual. The more I inhabit my body, the more I trust it. The more I trust it, the more I can access embodied experiences that are actually pleasurable.

But as I enjoy this post-plunge gluten-free pizza with a gummy and a kombucha, I look at this moment with deep gratitude for the journey. It all started on Valentine's Day when I was 16.

(Trigger Warning: The following section briefly details sexual assault.)

When I was 16, I was sexually assaulted. My first experience with sexual contact was rape. It happened in a public place (the parking lot of my community college) with someone I knew well. As a sheltered teenager navigating an adult environment, I didn’t know how to process it other than to "freeze and appease."

From that point on, my understanding of sex was that it was something taken from you. I believed it was something men couldn’t help doing, so it was best to just "let them." My relationship with my body became rooted in a singular goal: surviving the attraction of men.

It wasn’t until I was 25, during the resurgence of the #MeToo movement, that I first heard the term "consent." I realized then that so many women had navigated these same complicated aftermaths. That realization led me to the brave decision to start sexual trauma therapy. Through Narrative Exposure Therapy, my therapist helped me detail every traumatic experience (starting with that Valentine’s Day a decade earlier) and rewrite the narrative without shame, blame, or guilt.

It changed my life. At 26, I started dating with consent at the forefront. I was open about my history; I wanted to move from a place of safety. For two years, I actually had fun. I equated "good sex" with "consensual sex." I was happy in relationships where there was explicit, ongoing consent and an abundance of aftercare.

But then, someone asked me a question that changed everything: "Are you actually enjoying the sex you’re having?"

I had to sit with that. Was I enjoying it? Or was I just agreeing to it because I finally had partners who respected me enough to ask?

By 2022, I realized I had never deeply explored what I liked. I was just... participating. 

I questioned compulsory monogamy and heterosexuality. For the first time in my life I wanted to date a woman, and I wanted to open my relationship to do so. At the time, I was dating a PhD student from the polyamorous world who encouraged me to explore. I told him I wanted a "second chance at a first time" aka an experience so unfamiliar I’d have nothing to compare it to. 

The summer of 2022 was one of the most whimsical romances I’ve ever experienced. It was tender, calm, and full of curiosity. It was the "first time" my 16-year-old self should have had. I expected a casual fling, but I fell in love. I wanted nothing about us to be casual.

That experience was the catalyst that confirmed both my asexuality and my polyamory.

I realized I loved her as much as I loved him. I didn’t want a "primary" and a "casual" partner; I wanted two partners equally. But as my love for both of them grew, my desire to engage with them sexually disappeared. In exploring "what I liked," I finally realized that partnered sex was never something I actually craved.

By January 2023, I was single. Both of them wanted monogamy and asexuality was one factor that wouldn’t work for either of them long term. They had every right to walk away, but it left me with a complex mix of deep pain and incredible joy. I lost them as partners, but I gained the clarity and language I had been seeking for years.

I’ve been openly asexual and polyamorous ever since. It’s wild to think this journey began on Valentine’s Day. These identities have taught me more about the nature of love than I ever thought possible.

Since then, I’ve learned so much about love through polyamory and asexuality. 

Polyamory has taught me so much about the nature of love, starting with the fact that love isn't a finite resource. I learned that loving one person doesn’t take away from the love I have for another; it actually just expands my capacity to care for everyone in my life. It taught me that autonomy is a gift and that true love means supporting a partner’s growth and their connections with others, even the ones that have nothing to do with me. I realized that communication is everything, and that deep, radical honesty about what I need and where my boundaries are is the only way to keep intimacy healthy. I also had to release the idea of a "hierarchy" because the value of a relationship shouldn't be determined by its rank, but by the unique connection we share. Most importantly, I learned that sometimes letting go is the ultimate act of love. Choosing to let someone go because our needs for monogamy or polyamory, or sexual desires don't align is a form of deep respect for both of us.

Asexuality has been just as transformative in how I see intimacy. It showed me that closeness is multifaceted and that you can be "soul-tied" to someone without physical sex ever being the primary driver of the relationship. I finally understood that my validation comes from within, and I don't need to "perform" sexual desire to be a complete partner or a whole person. There is so much power in a "no," and fully understanding my "no" to sex allowed me to find a much more powerful and authentic "yes" to other forms of touch and closeness. It helped me de-center the "sexual script" and realize that love can be built on shared values, intellectual sparks, and emotional safety rather than just relying on physical chemistry. Ultimately, it taught me that passion has so many different languages and that true intimacy can exist entirely outside of sex.

Looking back at that 16-year-old girl in the parking lot, I wish I could tell her that her body was always hers, even when it didn't feel like it. 15 years later, she traded survival for exploration, and "freeze and appease" for cold plunges and boundaries. Today, I’m not just surviving Valentine’s Day; I’m celebrating the freedom of finally knowing exactly who I am, and having partnerships that truly reflect that.