How does this place view single and celibate women

The fact the website is called mumsnet means that a large majority will be mums. Most of us will be mums from having sex multiple times when we were trying to conceive or not. Many of us will be with a partner creating or raising that child at some point. So it’s obvious that most of us have not always been celibate and/or single all our lives. Other than that there’s absolutely nothing that’s definitive. There’s no collective viewpoint.

OP click on all the titles of the talk section - there’s health, education, diy, tv, property, elderly parents, sporners corner, off the top of my head. None of which have any relevance as to whether you have sex or a partner particularly. But usually these conversations are through the lens of being a mum as it’s mumsnet.

As someone who belongs to a small ethnicity and is Lesbian, I'm used to and expect the majority of people not to be interested in my holidays nor my sexuality and its issues. It's fine! And it's really the same issue
The mainstream majority is white, likes Christmas and is straight.
I think the Asexual posters come from the majority group and suddenly are unequipped to deal with the normal lack of interest in your subgroup. The answer is to find/form your subgroup circle; they are interested.

You are not super-special; nobody cares.

This Place has no view, OP. Its an anonymous Internet forum where anyone can post.

The asexuality spectrum. What are the respective ends of that spectrum?

It’s none of my business if other women are completely celibate or shagging loads of partners of either/both sexes (I just hope it’s all entirely consensual and she is making active and positive choices for her own self).

I don’t think asexuality belongs with LGB though, celibacy has never been outlawed (ie most cultures throughout history have legitimised it via religious practices, eg joining the convent).

I was addressing claims made on this thread that no one cares about people’s sexuality, and another call for sexuality to be kept private. These did not seem
specific to asexuality and neither was my response. Apologies I should have quoted the post I was responding to to make myself clearer.

I was single for around 8 years. I have to say I did experience feeling patronised by people who seemed to assume that, because I didn't have a sexual partner or children, I didn't have a life. It would mainly come to a head over work situations such as booking annual leave and assigning unpopular shifts.
I would never, ever describe it as feeling oppressed because that, I think, would be absurd, but I did find it annoying sometimes and occasionally upsetting. So I'm not unsympathetic, but what I don't know is what being asexual would have added to the mix, and how giving it a label changes anything?

Yes @Superfood.

I think activists in this space are so used to appropriating others’ suffering that they don’t even realise they’re doing it.

It's really shit to try to appropriate the appalling violence, crime, prejudice and even murder that gay and lesbian people have been subjected to for centuries.

Equal marriage, laws against homophobic discrimination, legal recognition of same sex relationships are hugely important. I have a relative who was actually sent to prison for 'cottaging' as recently as the 1960s.

It's awful to try to claim some sort of similar oppression because you're 'demi aro ace' - bollocks. Alan Turing didn't die because he was 'sapiosexual' or whatever. He was a gay man in a society that treated gay people appallingly. This does not fucking apply to 'asexuals'and it's horrible appropriation of someone else's pain and suffering.

It's just Stonewall. making people think people don't like asexuals whereas noone really cares/given it any thought. they're trying to divide society, make us rip ourselves apart.

I don't think about other women's sex lives at all.

there is a difference between asexuality - which is just not having sex, so there’s nothing to demonstrate or show - and homosexuality, where people have had to (and continue to) hide their sexuality.

It’s ridiculous that anyone cares about gay and lesbian couples holding hands or whatever. But no one cares if you’re not walking along holding someone’s hand. There’s nothing to be kept private. No one even knows unless you shout about being asexual and requiring validation and acknowledgement of that.

Loads of people are single and celibate (and may not ‘identify as asexual’). It can be crap when the world is set up to assume couples as the default. But it really isn’t the same thing as homophobia and the lack of equal marriage laws and so on.

Good lord.

The focus on asexuality when the LGBA judgement was in the cusp of being out
..really timely.

Anyway they won.

Yea, the echo is that of the various outsiders making accounts to start goading threads.

No one is denying homophobia. But people don't get beaten up or targeted or harassed for not wanting to have sex.

I have no issue with asexuality or asexual people. It makes sense, if you've got people who like the opposite sex, and people who like the same sex, then you're gonna also get people who like no sex.

But it's another label that's been coopted by the super special club. "Ooh, I'm an aromantic demi sexual hexadecidodecahedron"

Either you like men, like women, like both, or don't like anyone. Anything else is justusing extra words to try to get attention

Great post.

I haven't been on the asexuality thread (although I have seen the photo a PP referred to on Twitter) but my issue with this is that OG Pride was created as a response to LGB people being discriminated against for their sexuality: unable to marry, persecuted for being 'out' - real persecution, often including violence - and in the case of gay men, demonised and avoided because of the fear of AIDS. At no stage of history have asexual people been discriminated against for not feeling sexual attraction, so why they feel the need to claim any kind of victimhood, I'm not sure.

TBH I couldn't give a flying fuck who anyone does or doesn't sleep with so long as it's legal and consensual. I just don't need a running commentary on whether you're a furry or a leather pig or a TPE 24/7 sub or all or none. Celebrate your relationship(s) or absence of them by all means, but keep the details of what you do in bed to yourself.

If you're single and celibate by choice, crack on. If you're single and celibate not by choice, I wish you well in finding a partner who makes you happy.

If ‘no one cares’ about people’s sexuality, why do gay and lesbian couples get beaten up for holding hands or kissing in public? People very clearly do care, and anyone who argues that sexuality should be kept private is effectively telling homosexuals to get back in the closet. Unless they are also advocating any displays of heteronormative behaviour should also be kept ‘private’.

I do understand that feeling of difference.

But asexuals are not oppressed. There is no need for legislative changes as there were for gays and lesbians, or POC or women or disabled people as no-one is discriminating against them.

I honestly don't care who you do or don't have sex with. I do care that you seem so utterly fixated on it and start so many threads.

Perhaps you should get a hobby or something. Because this relentless focus on your absence of a sex drive seems very unhealthy for you to my mind.

It’s just as tedious to have to be told about someone’s asexuality as it is to have to listen to people banging on about their polyamory and/or their kinks.

Mostly, the world isn’t that interested in whether you’re having sex or not.

What happens when someone goes online and invites people to comment on their sexual preferences just isn’t indicative of how anyone feels when the topic isn’t brought up.

Virginity isn’t a’social construct’ ( I’m tempted to add FFS) . It’s the physical state of not having had sexual intercourse. It applies to male and female , although the male does not have a ‘proof’ like the hymen.

Until quite recently, virginity and celibacy were seen as praiseworthy options in the service of religion.

But, if someone didn’t feel the need to shout about how they are asexual, no one would care at all.

Many of us simply don’t talk about our sex lives outside of the relationships in which we have sex. Why would I imagine anyone would be interested in my sex life or sex drive?

I don't give a fuck who people do or don't have sex with. I have no wish to know anything about anyones sex life, or lack thereof. I find it weird how so many people think that it's the most important part of themselves nowadays and that everyone needs to know. I feel like they should go out in the real world and get a job, or hobbies, and find out that actually no one bloody cares.

@JodyMitchell this is exceptionally frustrating, to be castigated for the words of other people on a different thread that may or may not still exist. Indeed the posts themselves may have been deleted by MN for breaking talk guidelines. Who can say? All I can say is that those are not things that I have ever responded to people who state they are asexual.