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What is Asexuality?

 
 
Peach Pie
16:40 / 03.05.05
I'm starting this thread because I'm slightly baffled by the concept of asexuality. As I understand it, someone is asexual when they experience no sexual desire at all. They may experience other forms of desire for people and indeed exclusive relationships.

People who only fancy one or two others, according to asexuality.org, have 'low sexual intensity'. Now, suppose someone ordinarily feels no sexual desire at all to anyone. Very occasionally they see a single person to whom they feel sexual attraction. But when the person goes away, they "forget" what sexual attraction feels like.

You can probably guess the question coming... Is this person an asexual at the times s/he is removed from the object of his/her affection? If so, if s/he no longer qualifies as such when the person s/he fancies is in sight, does this mean that the term "asexual" is trivial?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:42 / 04.05.05
You can probably guess the question coming... Is this person an asexual at the times s/he is removed from the object of his/her affection? If so, if s/he no longer qualifies as such when the person s/he fancies is in sight, does this mean that the term "asexual" is trivial?

I don't think the distinction is "when this person is in my line of sight, I am a sexual being. When they are hidden behind a door, I am not". More that people who generally consider themselves asexual, or to avoid the term people who are not generally atracted to people, sometimes find themselves unexpectedly attracted to somebody. The question of identity then comes in - if you experience feelings of sexual attraction in specific circumstances, can you still identify as broadly asexual, much as many people identify as straight despite feeling occasional attraction for people whom they would not identify as suitable recipients of heterosexual desire. That's about boundaries and comfort - if somebody has a wife and kids and is having two or three (sexual) affairs, is an asexual support group still a comfortable place for them if they maintain that they are not generally sexually attracted to people with these few exceptions, or indeed that they like these people in lots of non-sexual ways and have resigned themselves to the fact that they have to provide a sexual component to have the other things they want from them. That's a much trickier question.

So, you might want to begin by considering how sexual desire functions for you, and how it would have to function for you to see yourself as identifiably asexual, then work out from there what you mean by "trivial" in this context.
 
 
Olulabelle
08:53 / 04.05.05
Isn't experiencing low sexual intensity different from being asexual? I would have thought that feeling any sort of sexual desire (however infrequently or directed) automatically 'disqualified' a person from being termed asexual.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:15 / 04.05.05
But does feeling sexual desire for the odd bloke disqualify somebody from being heterosexual? That's where taxonomy and identity start interacting. It's not like classifying a tree, because a tree cannot respond "actually, I identify as quercus".

"Asexual" is a difficult term, of course, because it also has the meaning of "without sexual intercourse" (of reproduction) and "without sexual organs" (of entities). These are both scientifically definable qualities, in a way that "without sexual desire" isn't. When I look at somebody I am attracted to, how much of that feeling is strictly sexual desire, for example?
 
 
Peach Pie
13:20 / 04.05.05
Hmm. Such anecdotal evidence as I've seen from people who refer to themselves as asexuals tends to raise more questions than they answer. For example, I read an interview with a lady who said she was asexually attracted to both men and women. She spoke about a relationship she'd had with both a gay man and a gay woman, and they both involved non-sexual contact. The reason this confused me was that she wanted to have these relationships with people she was physically attracted to. So her criteria for a partner were a) must be physically attractive to my standards, and b) must not want to do the things that mutual physical attraction between two people commonly lead to.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:50 / 05.05.05
The idea of being 'disqualified' is a good place to interrogate what a sexual identity means, I think.

You can (potentially) see asexuality a number of ways, as mentioned above - an absolutely minimal sex drive, an indifference to sex or an aversion, or not being atracted to sex with other people (you can have a sexual drive, I imagine without fancying anyone you meet, for instance), or a bunch of other things.
Clearly, different things would 'disqualify' you for each of these definitions - one person might feel physical admiration and attraction for other people but not want to engage in sex with them, and someone else could challenge that and say 'I'm a proper asexual because I never fancy anyone'.

I would argue, and I hope it doesn't offend any self-identified asexuals, that this is because it's like most modern sexual identities - it's a bunch of people clumping together in order to name something that otherwise gets derided or ignored. It makes it easier to discuss, it means you can 'come out' (apply the name to yourself in front of friends or family). Sometimes it even gets you a brief flurry of media attention.
Within that label there will be a whole bunch of dissenting people.

So it's really down to how people chose to explain asexuality. I'd hope that it would stay as broad as possible but allowing people to be specific about their experiences.

I think it can be useful but also a bit problematic to explain asexuality as 'appearing in nature'/'part of a natural spectrum' - I wouldn't say for a moment that it's unnatural, and this explanation gets nature 'on side' and that will pre-empt a few snarky enquiries ('But it can't be normal or we'd all die out! DO YOU WANT US ALL TO DIE? EH?'). But I hope this won't lead to people laying down the law about what the 'natural' state of asexuality is, because someone will always get left out.

And in brief:
So her criteria for a partner were a) must be physically attractive to my standards, and b) must not want to do the things that mutual physical attraction between two people commonly lead to.

But that also describes a lot of people, not just asexuals. If most people knew what various kinky types get up to with people they find physically attractive, many of them would find it utterly incompatible with their notion of 'the things that mutual physical attraction...commonly lead to'.

The ways that people express attraction to each other are endlessly various, and include different amounts and kinds of physical contact and emotional engagement. I don't see a contradiction that someone may find person appealling but not want to have yer standard pokey-thing-in-hole sex with them. Wanting to hang out with them drinking tea seems as good an expression of attraction as wanting to dress them as Cthulhu.

Also, some people get a buzz from their friends (squash partners, workmates) to be attractive to them, when they're never going to have sex with them. There are a lot of ways of responding to physical attraction.
 
 
Ex
10:14 / 05.05.05
I'd add to Haus's last point that some people (my sainted Mother included) would probably find non-sexual affectionate contact a better way of expressing affection and desire than most of the things I want to do with people I'm attracted to. That is, more in the same ball park/on a continuum with ordinary sex.

On the question of how a sexual identity is defined by exclusion - who is 'in' and who is 'out': I want to predict a quick future media moment. I reckon as soon as the word 'asexual' gets a bit of cultural currency, people will come out as 'ex'-asexuals - 'I used to call myself asexual but then I had therapy'.
If I recall my drooly teen years correctly, Stephen Fry did something similar - initially he went on record (in a rather amusing column) as uninterested in sex. Then later he stated that his aversion was based in self-loathing and now he was bang up for it. Which is jolly nice for him, as he seems perkier, and he didn't (if I remember) generalise to anyone else. That is crucial for my estimation of the bloke. Because the media always seem happiest when things are expressed in the more dramatic terms that 'this group I used to be a member of are all lying'.
Eventually, someone who will insist that their own 'conversion' means that asexuality doesn't exist, or that all asexuals are fooling themselves.

Possibly I'm oversensitive to this kind of pattern in coverage of dissident identities: fat pride gets a similar press ('I used to say I was fat and happy but I was crying inside and so are all the other overweight people in the world'), gay and lesbian celebrities are grilled for tales of recantation if they start seeing members of the opposite sex ('I was forced into it, it's a terrible way of life').

At that point it would be useful if one could say: 'Well, asexuality is a concept that has been evolved for people to discuss not wanting to have sex - obviously that will differ from person to person, and good luck to chappie X, but there are still a lot of us who think the term describes us'.

So I'd hope that asexuality can skip some of the pitfalls that other sexual identities have entered into and keep itself as a broad church, a flexible term, a moveable feast, etc. Rather like 'transgender', which seems like a deliberately broad umbrella term. But I know I'm very much influenced by my own various identifications, which aren't the one under discussion, so something more appropriate may be developed by self-identified asexuals. And indeed, 'asexuality' as a concept may need more hefty rhetorical tactics than postmodern flim-flam.

That's a point - do people think the idea of wanting no sex is harder to convince people of than the idea of wanting other dissident kinds of sex?
 
 
Persephone
14:36 / 05.05.05
I think it compares to how amoral characters are presented as scarier than immoral characters. Now that I think of it, amoral characters are often presented as asexual.
 
 
dj kali_ma
03:29 / 06.05.05
Sometimes I wonder if I'm really asexual. I just think that sex makes me nervous these days. We're soaking in it, after all.

By some definitions, people can be born as gay or "become" gay later. I think (and I might be in the minority here) that sexuality is a lot more fluid than "political" ideas/identities like gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and all the other variations can cover.

Being that sexuality is on a spectrum, and that sometimes people just don't feel like having sex, I think that asexual-identity is just fine.

My mom didn't come out as lesbian until she was 30 or so, and she's been with the same woman for 20 years, so... is she a lesbian? Does having me disqualify her? I don't think so... I hope not.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:21 / 06.05.05
I think (and I might be in the minority here) that sexuality is a lot more fluid than "political" ideas/identities like gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and all the other variations can cover.

Well, yes... but that leads on to the question of whether these "political" (I'd suggest "taxonomic" as an alternative) terms are trying accurately and completely to describe the sexuality of everyone who uses them. If they are, then it's pretty clear they are failing. So, what's the language for? In the first instance a term like "asexual" can provide a sense of identity (and a rallying point) for people who are not currently adequately served by the currently available sexual terminologies. Like, if nobody was ever expected to be straight, nobody would have needed to come up with the idea of being gay, and onwards.

So, maybe it's a question of how you interact with those labels. If you are confident, you may decide that you don't need the identity or the community of a terminolgoy to describe your sexuality, or you might decide that, whereas none of the terminologies precisely describes you, they do contain useful conceptual elements to help put the picture together.

Your mother seems a good example to work from, DJKM. She was presuambly sexually attracted to and sexually active with men for one part of her life, and subsequently had a long-term relationship which clearly doesn't qualify as a heterosexual relationship. That gives her a lot of options for descriptions of this single set of actions. She could say that she was always a lesbian, and that she was simply not given a chance to find this out for many years (Joanne Russ says something along these lines- that she never realised that she _could_ be a Lesbian, and the therapy that she went to to address her deep unhappiness with her marriage aimed to repair a heterosexuality that was assumed to exist rather than acknowledge the possibility that it didn't). She could say that she identified as and felt straight for that part of her life she spent in relatiionships with men, and now identifies as and feels not-straight, and neither condition invalidates the other. She can say that gender is not a deal-breaker, and it so happens that the qualities she looks for in a partner have been most successfully instantiated by a woman rather than a man. These are all different readings of the same situation, just like Stephen Fry can say "I was asexual (to get back to asexuality) for a long time, then I found out that my lack of sexual desire was a sympton of self-loathing and have no become a sexual being" - that may or may not disqualify him from considering himself previously asexual.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
10:31 / 06.05.05
Maybe these are all stations rather than the end of the line. I'm bisexual but I'm also currently asexual, based on how I understand the term. But I can see that in x amount of time the situation might be different, but that doesn't invalidate what I am now.
 
 
Spaniel
17:02 / 06.05.05
Forgive me if I'm being thick, but if by asexual, you, Flowers, mean not currently sexually attracted to anyone, the term seems a little redundant, unless of course it is important for you to identify as part of the asexual community. If that's the case, I have to ask, why? What's so important about filling the space between fancying people with a new sexual identity, why can't you just be a bisexual who hasn't met the right people lately?

Sorry, a bit drunk. Probably not thinking well.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
13:16 / 07.05.05
I wouldn't say I'm part of an 'asexual community', certainly not in the same way that I'm a member of a 'bisexual community', just. But I'm using them as a way to describe my current situation, not as something which will never change or I should expect to get grief from my peers if I change. It's not a big deal, I just mention it because it's germaine to the current conversation.
 
 
Spaniel
14:28 / 07.05.05
I once spent a good five years with barely a whiff of sexual contact. For much of that time I wasn't sexually attracted to anyone, and the pursuit of sex didn't feature (much) in my life. I suppose I could have identified as asexual over that period, but I'm not sure I would have wanted to. I mean, what's the motivation if you're pretty secure in your sexuality, you know that you can feel sexual attraction, you just haven't met anyone that does it for you for a while?
 
 
Spaniel
14:30 / 07.05.05
I suppose what I'm getting at is why use asexuality as descriptor at all if you're in a situation similar to the one I was in?
 
 
dj kali_ma
18:53 / 07.05.05
I guess it's because some people need to name what it is that they're feeling. If not having sex is a big enough choice in your life (and by "choice", I mean something you're not forced into by circumstance), then I guess that's why asexuality exists.

Some people have no sexual feelings right now, or have an occupation that keeps them from having sex. That might be celibacy.

Some other people are raped by people of the same sex, but I doubt it "makes" them gay any more than a guy raping a lesbian makes her straight, or a girl sexually assaulting a gay man makes him straight, either.

I dunno, this particular rabbit hole goes pretty deep.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
16:24 / 09.05.05
Boboss I suppose what I'm getting at is why use asexuality as descriptor at all if you're in a situation similar to the one I was in?

Why use 'gay' as a descriptor if you like having sex with people of the same sex? You don't have to. But you can if you want to.
 
 
Spaniel
17:01 / 09.05.05
Brain's working better now.

I think it's all to do with what we expect from people when they use sexual descriptors. If we expect people's sexuality to be changeable - or at least potentially changeable - then I can see why you would use the term, if we see sexuality as relatively fixed then the term might be a tad too powerful for someone in your situation.

I assume you're in the latter camp.
 
 
Spaniel
20:09 / 09.05.05
Head-butts wall.

Former, I meant former...
 
 
Peach Pie
12:29 / 10.05.05
hmm. i think that someone terming themselves "asexual" is actually a very sexual act. presumably they're saying "i only feel sexual desire under very specific circumstances, and has decided that these circumstances cannot obtain.
 
 
Spaniel
15:26 / 10.05.05
Not sure where you got that from. From what I understand, the descriptor asexual is self-applied in all sorts of circumstances.

For example:

People who do not experience sexual desire, and don't ever expect to.

People - like Flowers - who have experienced sexual desire, but haven't for a while.

People who experience very low levels of sexual desire

People who only experience sexual desire very occasionally

People who experience sexual desire - the urge to masturbate, say - but have no desire to have sex with another person.

Etc...

Some of the above clearly contain an element of "sexual desire under very specific circumstances", others not so much. Also, quite clearly some asexuals do particpate in and enjoy sex - therefore there are situations where the circumstances most certainly do obtain.
 
 
Peach Pie
15:33 / 10.05.05
Yes - i should have phrased more specifically... people who long for satisfying sexual experiences, but do not actually experience sexual desire for anyone around them ... and thus... hang on
 
 
lord henry strikes back
20:08 / 10.05.05
This is a fascinating discussion, and a topic about which I obviously need to learn a lot more. However, I have a question. A few posts have raised the point of 'not currently being attracted to anyone'. By that is it meant that there is no-one in one's social circle, anyone avaliabe to the individual in question, with whom they want to have sexual relations? or does it mean that they have not recently seen a single actor/actress, singer, TV personality, shop assistant, person on the bus, that has in any way provoked in them a level of sexual desire? The former I think can be a very common occurence, where as the latter I feel would be quite unusual.
 
 
Spaniel
11:49 / 11.05.05
Goldfish, I'm really not sure what you're on about. Are defining a particlar brand of asexuality, are you attempting to describe what all asexual definitions have in common (if so, you're not succeeding), what?

Sorry, I'm not willfully trying to misunderstand you, and I could be missing something really obvious, but I would appreciate some clarification.
 
 
Peach Pie
13:04 / 12.05.05
no - my fault...

There's a common argument from the far left that spectator sports are very political. Because they *seem* apolitical, they divert people from engaging in governmental politics and settling for entertainment instead. So they're a political red herring.

One type of asexual is someone who says "I've experienced sexual attraction in the past, but I don't think I ever will again, because I don't think the circumstances will be there again". Maybe that's someone who is very choosy about their sexual preferences. They've decided the things that will attract them sexually are so rare that they won't find them again in the world.

So that type of asexuality is very distinct from the sort where, say, someone has never been that bothered about sex. And yet, they might both report themselves as being uninterested in sex.

Does that make sense? I'm not sure that it does.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
14:47 / 12.05.05
lord henry wotton, you might like to start with this article, though I'd only say that I don't consider asexuality to be just what is defined in this article, and it's not where I am positioned right now.
 
 
Ex
14:53 / 13.05.05
I’d argue that it’s only recent thing that asexuality has had to name itself as it’s only in recent years that everyone (able-bodied, between certain ages) has been expected to be at it, or trying to get it, as a central concern.

In previous generations, we’ve had various assumptions that let people opt out (or force them to opt out) of sexual activity: Women don’t want it (complicated by the fact that working class and non-white women are presumed to be interested). Nobody should be at it until they’re married. After a bit within marriage, you don’t do it either. Witness, as a combination of all three, the fabulously lugubrious phrase ‘My husband doesn’t trouble me much’. Then we have specific moments of derailment, such as the great chap shortage after the two World Wars.

I think therefore we’ve previously had a much broader social recognition of bachelorhood and spinsterhood, which allowed people who didn’t want sexual relationships to not pursue them.

And in an odd way, I think the visible gay identity has something to do with this. In the past, society has more or less refused to acknowledge the existence of people who are primarily attracted to their own sex (in any workable, non-hostile way). I think this has settled in certain societies into an uneasy closet-based truce where queers don't come out, and straight society doesn’t prod them too hard into heterosexual activity. This is made easier for society by a working terminology for the celibate: ‘perpetual bachelors’, ‘old maids’, Uncle Geoff who 'isn't the marrying type' and so forth. This kind of terminology also leaves room for people who might now identify as asexual to have their private lives free from interrogation.

There’s probably always been greater or lesser degrees of awareness that in many cases these were codes and covers and euphemisms for same-sex activity or desire.
Now, I believe, more people are coming out, and saying ‘No, we are not cohabiting celibate spinster friends but passionate saucy lover-types’, and the fact that society is listening (to an extent) has contributed to the erosion of celibacy as an everyday option. So asexual identity is in part coming out of a historical shift towards sex.

(Not that these celibacy and homosexual identity are inevitably opposed – you can, of course, be gay and celibate – I think they’ve just ended up in a querky historical tango.)
I’m mainly basing this on Barbara Pym novels, frankly, and would like input on it as a theory.
 
 
Peach Pie
15:01 / 13.05.05
It sounds an interesting theory to me, but i can't knowledgably comment...

Can someone who only fancies film stars they don't know be asexual? I imagine their own interpretation of their sexuality is still the determinant factor... Does fancying a film star help you to clarify the qualities you'd like to find in a "real life" future partner? Or does it help you to "forget" about your own sexual identity?

If someone fancies people because they'll never meet them, I imagine you could make a case for their being asexual.
 
 
Axolotl
15:16 / 13.05.05
That's a very interesting theory Ex and it seems plausible to me. I'd say the current societal obsession with sex has made it more difficult to be celibate, the current trends in society could make you feel different, and from there it's only a short step to reclaiming your difference and turning it into a positive identity.
 
 
Nocturne
17:52 / 05.04.09
I'd like to agree with the theory in general. There was no need to talk about not being sexual in a society where talking about sex was taboo. Just leave some things unsaid and everything was fine. Not quite the case anymore. People look at you funny if you tell them you're not getting any and you really don't care to.
 
 
Haus Of Pain
07:38 / 05.03.10
I appreciate that this is the Headshop and that anecdote is of limited worth hereabouts, but I really have to answer this with a healthy dose of life experience. To give some context, I'm 30, male, middle-class, and was brought up in rural Sussex. As far as I can remember my first sexual encounter happpened when I was around 9, and the next few years were chock full of sexual exploration. In my school year I was far from unusual in that my experiences were reflected in those of many, many others.
I can't prove that kids were having as much sex then as they are today, but my experience suggests, to me, that things probably haven't changed much.
 
 
Haus Of Pain
13:12 / 12.03.10
Unless someone wants to flesh this thread out - and I don't - I'm going to move for a deletion.
 
  
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