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

@Nimbostratus100 are you a geneticist or a statistician who specialises in genetic analysis? Or are you a virologist? Or are you someone who works with sex offenders? If you're a maths teacher how come you didn't know that AS levels still existed?

Particularly the young adult/teen experience of thinking there is something wrong with you/no-one else feels like this etc.

I don’t remember anyone thinking or talking this deeply about their sex lives.
I agree with the poster who suggested these are all symptoms of a pornsick society.

I am a maths teacher.

teachers have other qualifications, experiences and sidle lines as well as teaching you know.

I am a geneticist, specialising in statistical analysis. I did this for years full time, and I still do some free lance

My main job now is maths teaching. Hence spending hours a week on break duty

very strange indeed to be called "creepy" for this! 😂parents complain enough that there are not enough teachers around their children during breaks and lunchtimes

Asexual is something you are.

They're completely related.

Listen to the 'Out' podcast, so much of what's said applies to both groups. Particularly the young adult/teen experience of thinking there is something wrong with you/no-one else feels like this etc.

Apologies, when I said 'we' I meant the asexual community. Clearly, from your posts it has no relevance to you!

Didn't know this one. Thanks!

(Have to get off this thread!!)

Is this like if an atheist complained she wasn't included in 'faith groups'?

No, we don't . It has no relevance whatsoever.

I don’t understand why there needs to be asexual representation?
LGB - was necessary to bring their rights in line with rights non-LGB had.
I think educating children about LGBT+ must nowadays be so confusing and put yet more pressure on children at a time when they really don’t need it. Beyond biological function, how babies are made, how some people are same sex attracted, I think much of sex education creates more problems than it solves.

Whilst asexuality is now an identity, I can’t help but feel that this is on a spectrum - some people have very high sex drives, others none at all, most fall in a bell curve between the two.
Presumably those with very high sex drives are too busy having sex to put a label on it and focus about their representation?

I also wonder if compulsory heterosexuality has anything to do with asexuality. I know many women who didn’t know until middle age that they were lesbians - most of them thought they hated sex until it became clear that they hated sex with men.

Lots of gay/lesbian teens don’t know they are, so are very vulnerable to suggestion from all round - that they’re asexual, or trans. Surely it would be better to try to draw back from the weirdness that expects everyone to know exactly who they are at a young age, and display their labels wherever they can.

(Thank fuck I grew up decades ago. I cannot get my head around any adult encouraging this fucked up ideology to any young person)

Gay is something you are, as opposed to something you're not. Why can't you see the difference, and stop trying to conflate two things that are completely unrelated?

This is 100% what we need!

A character who just happens to be asexual. Not the main thing about them. Just boring old asexual with their boring gay mate and their boring straight mate.

Bit of representation.

It is an imposition on people: It others them, marginalises them by recasting their lack of interest in something as a requirement to identify themselves precisely in terms of that something
Very well put.

Tbf you did say 'Its a nonsense'. And used capital letters for NONSENSE. So I'd dispute that's it's obviously not what you said!

I agree with you that asexual people shouldn't be grouped in with the LGB group. There is no more common ground there than with straight people. Other than they're both outside 'the norm'.

I have to disagree that it's new or that it isn't as key to someone's identity as being gay/straight is. It's a huge thing to completely lack an urge/feeling that the vast majority experience. It is isolating. It's upsetting. It's often something that people desperately try to fix about themselves. People feeling that deserve a community and support just like gay/bi people do. It's a shame that there can't be more support. It's a shame that we need to describe something fundamental to someone's identity as nonsensical.

I would question what you feel the harm would be in just being a little bit kinder to this community? Or not getting involved at all? I know I'm here arguing this side of the debate because I think greater understanding and representation would make people feel more accepted and less isolated. What's your drive to dispute all of it? To pick apart representation? To suggest a show featuring a asexual character would be fucking tedious? What's your goal?

I've got to bow out now, but I hope anyone reading this and not commenting isn't too hurt by the comments here. Some of it is tough reading.

I'd try reading it all back and substituting asexual for gay and seeing if it all sits comfortably.

Except usually them being straight is the least interesting thing about the situation. It's a fact, not the main event, so to speak. This would also be the case if they were "openly" asexual.

I don’t suppose Attitude gives a flying fuck about the number of lesbians & bi women who feel that they lost their community to the alphabet soup of homophobic gender ideology?

When I came out it was all about same-sex relationships. Now it’s all about gender bollocks with more & more letters being added on.

I do get that asexuality isn’t a gender. But my view is that the longer the acronym gets, the more lesbophobic it becomes. See Stonewall calling lesbians ‘sexual racists’, for instance.

Liv in Emmerdale was asexual

Not platonic. Romantic, but not sexual.

No, I asked for shows featuring asexual characters. Openly, outwardly asexual.

@NuffSaidSam
From what I understand you're claiming that because you don't understand asexuality/haven't experienced it, it's a nonsense/it doesn't exist/it's a conspiracy? Is that right?

No of course that's not flaming right, and since it is so obviously not what I said, it is hard to imagine that you are arguing in good faith. There are asexual people, obviously. I implied as much when I said that young people need to explore whether and when sex is relevant for them.

Some people don't want sex through huge chunks of their lives. Some people don't want sex, ever, in their lives. This isn't a contested or newly acknowedged truth! It's not something hard to understand, or something alien to my experience. Jesus, I imagine that quite a lot the women on mumsnet (me included) feel very much as if they wish the obligation to have sex would just disappear, for a while or forever.
What is new (and nonsensical) is making this an 'identity' - and on top of that an identity within a movement that is about sex (protecting people from discrimination on the basis o their sexual orientation and activity).

It is an imposition on people: It others them, marginalises them by recasting their lack of interest in something as a requirement to identify themselves precisely in terms of that something.

They 're related in the same way they're related for characters who do have sexual relationships. But presumably you don't have a problem with a character being both gay and having financial problems? It's just two different, unrelated things about the same person. Why would it be different for an asexual person? A person can be both asexual and involved in a power struggle at work or trying to become a parent or seeking a relationship or grieving a parent or literally any other plot line that features straight characters.

Should have said LaPerduta I took that as a given

So go on. Without saying “I am asexual” how do you portray asexuality? Lesbian can be portrayed by two girls in a relationship. Gay by two guys ditto. How do you portray a lack of interest in something without stating that character is not interested in that thing? And why would you think Sherlock is gay because he’s single and childless? Surely he’s the asexual representation you’re looking for? He even states romance is detrimental to his work…

I took that as a given

Yes, I do understand that. Platonic ones. I’m not stupid. Please stop patronising me. You asked for shows with characters happy to be single and childless. I provided them. You then changed the goalposts.

I'm going to take this at face value.

They're not represented one way or the other. It's not about their relationships.

There are many, many, many, many shows that are ABOUT relationships and people seeking them/struggling with them/ending them etc. Asexuality is never represented in any of these shows. In exactly the same way that gay relationships were never represented in these types of shows. Would you have said Sherlock Holmes counts as a gay character because he isn't outwardly straight?