Young adults who identify as asexual feel excluded from the wider LGBTQ community

I'm bi. I think I'll start complaining I'm not being included in the lesbian or heterosexual communities.

The main problem with young asexuals feeling excluded from the LGBA community, is that they will most likely also feel totally excluded from the mainstream community, particularly during teenage years, when all their friends, school peers and associates suddenly start prioritising sex

If 'young asexuals' feel excluded from 'the mainstream coomunity', don't you think that the solution to that is a reversal of the ever-more insense sexualisation of young people's experience? Rather than recasting a lack of interest in sex as an identity within a movement for people who are persecuted precisely because of their sexual orientation and activity

A lack of interest in sex isn't a sexual identity any more than being vegetarian is a preference about how you like your steak cooked.

We have so bullied and squashed young people into a hypersexualised society that we now seem to be telling them that the only way avoid the pressure to be sexually active is to attach a label to themselves that defines them in terms of what they are not (ie defines them in terms of other people's priorities and experiences) - a label that confines them just when they should feel unconfined and free to evolve.

It is a NONSENSE. Many or most (or all?) girls and young women, and plenty of young men, are deeply uncertain about sex and need time, space, a lack of pressure in order to explore and work out whether and when it will be relevant for them. What they don't need is a movement telling them that their uncertainty is some kind of special niche sexual identity. Leave them alone FFS

Betrothed??? Heterosexual

You are contradicting yourself here.

The LGB kids will be behaving just the same as the betrothed kids. Exploring and experimenting with their sexualities so of course asexual kids are going to fell on the outside of all of them.

Boo hoo. Why don’t asexual people set up their own ‘community’? LGB prople have been through enough without narcissistic assholes demanding access to everything. Asexual people have no right to be included in the LGB just because they want to be, anymore than anyone else does.

With people expressing comments like this it's no wonder asexuals don't feel welcome.
Welcome where, exactly?

There's huge amounts of chat in everyday life about relationships and dating and sex. Huge discussion about representation of gay/bi/trans people in media etc. Conversations around sex/relationship education and what children should/shouldn't be taught. Asexuals as a group are completely left out of all of that. I can understand why that's difficult.

I don't believe they are left out, but if they are so what?

Despite the current obsession with everything being inclusive, that's not always possible or desirable.

I don't have kids and what's been said above could equally apply to me wrt being "left out" of conversations around families/parenting. I wouldn't necessarily expect to be included either, I think that would be quite entitled tbh.

What a horrible thread. The LGBTQ+ community isn't just about sex!
Some (not all) asexual people experience romantic feelings and seek partnership and that can be from a variety of orientations.
With people expressing comments like this it's no wonder asexuals don't feel welcome.
Society can often feel obsessed with sex (just look at advertising!) and that can feel just as exclusionary as only showing heteronormative relationships.
There's been a lot of mean-spirited threads about asexuality on here recently and I don't get it.

I'm middle-aged, Lesbian, and definitely interested in sex with another L! I'm sexually attracted to women; that's what Lesbian means ffs.
When I was a teenager in the closet, I had plenty of hobbies and interests and listened to my straight friends witter on about boys. It's called life; stop whining and get on with things

You are going to keep talking about something that you are not interested in or wanting to talk about?

You people.

No. Not to the extent that it totally excludes everything else.
And so what if this excludes people who don't relate to it? How will recognising their non interest include them?

I think people do care actually. I think en masse people are very interested in other people's lives/sex lives/relationships. There's huge amounts of chat in everyday life about relationships and dating and sex. Huge discussion about representation of gay/bi/trans people in media etc. Conversations around sex/relationship education and what children should/shouldn't be taught. Asexuals as a group are completely left out of all of that. I can understand why that's difficult.

So what?

Very small children.

Surely, you know that teens and young people have relationships/sexual feelings/sex etc?

I’m a weirdo and there are so many things normies are obsessed with that I don’t share and I feel awkward about my lack of interest in. I don’t expect anyone else to understand or give a shit though.

Where is the hostility coming from, exactly? What understanding are you craving, and from whom? You've been told enough times that people in general don't give a toss, but you're not happy with this, you yearn to be "recognised"...
Not happening, nobody cares 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm asexual and I agree with every word she says.

I hope you can try and imagine what it is like to be young, and asexual, and alone, without understanding and recognition

Surely all children are asexual ffs?

It's a sad draw of affairs when a whole identity has to be created for consent to be upheld.

Replace ‘camel’ with the phrase gender ideology/ identity.

Try to imagine what it’s like for pupils who believe in biological fact and seemingly everyone around them is overriding those facts with gender ideology. Including some adults. You have to remember to use different pronouns to what you see or that are completely new and lose your single-sex toilets to a free for all. Some people even seem to believe you can change sex. Children and adults around you become very obsessed with their identities and how their identity is more oppressed. They have special days, colours and flags which are put up around the school to make sure you know who is right. No debate. No critical analysis.

I would have thought asexuality is on the rise from the constant bombardment of sexual stuff people are exposed to on the internet and the hassle in real life. I would rather young girls chose that label than transman or boy.

Thank you for your lovely post!

Yes, there is a lot of hostility, but I am nearly 60 now, and old enough and ugly enough for it to just wash off my back.

But I am prepared to stick my head over the parapet and keep on talking about it, and keep on raising awareness, so that the young asexuals of today have a better chance of a life without the hostility and ignorance

This!!!!
Christ it is dull

To do that, the condition of being someone who doesn't want any animal in their living room, needs to be recognised and accepted, firstly by the person themselves, secondly by their friends and family, and thirdly by the wider society,

although without it being recognised and accepted by the wider society, the person and their friends and family wont be able to recognise and accept it, as they wont even know that it exists

I'm really surprised by this thread. There seems to be a lot of hostility towards asexual people. I've seen it before on MN, but thought this section usually brings more thoughtful conversation.

I do think asexual people don't really belong within the LGB community though. They've been tagged in as 'people we in the mainstream don't really understand', but they don't really fit there either.

In some ways asexual people are the most ostracized community, certainly in terms of representation and understanding.