Absolute stupid question about asexuality and sexuality.

[AceNotInSpace]

Hi, I totally understand that this isin’t exactly the place to come and talk about asexuality, but I swear every single online space I have found and been part of, have kind of gone crazy.

Things seem to have gone strange in the past couple of years where a lot of people are now using the label asexuality.
I’m in online places to find people like me and talk about obstacles in our lives, but these days
they are pretty much filled with people who do have sex (mostly seem to be young girls/women having sex with boys/men) who say that they are ”aesthetically and emotionally attracted to” their partner / people and like the physical feeling of sex.
Isin’t this just the very average, very basic, very ’normal’ sexuality?
They want and have sex, they have libidos and they put them to use.

What makes this asexuality / part of asexual spectrum?

And now they are in asexual spaces telling pwoplw who are actually asexual, that they belong there, and if you question them, you are aphobic and excluding people.
In our own space.

What is this? Do they not realize they’re taking place from people who it actually belongs to?

Again, I can’t talk about this in these communities, because I get an angry mob after me, so I brought my beef here, I’m sorry 😅!

Young girls is quite commonly used in that context to mean older teenagers - 16-20 or so - I don't think it's a WTF phrasing here. Like "young people" doesn't mean three year olds.

All these labels are ridiculous and attention seeking. No one cares if you do or don't have sex or who you do or don't do it with, so no need for any announcements.

And thank you for that beautiful demonstration on why we actually need our own space where we can talk about things involving around being asexual.

By all means, talk with people who want to about not fancying it much. I don't, really.
But realise that giving yourself a label and constructing some oppression myth is, at best, a bit self obsessed.

I'm asexual. I didn't know I was until around 5 years ago because I just hadn't really given much thought to putting a label on it. All I knew is that I'd never, in my 35 years of being an adult, ever been physically attracted to another human being. I was physically capable of going through the mechanics of sex and only ever did it to please a man. That's still the case and I've been married for over 20 years. I suppose I experience it in the same way a straight person would experience sex with a same sex partner. No attraction, no arousal. Just love and happy to hold the person close and go through the motions.

I’ve never seen an asexual person to claim that they are opressed.
Only non-asexual who like to, for whatever reason, go on a huff about it and claim that asexuals are saying non-sense like that.

OP if you met a guy on an asexual dating website and he told you he wanted sex I would say he was purposefully exploiting you and gaslighting you. He knows damn well he isn't asexual but gets a kick out of testing your boundaries. It's unfortunate that people act like this but you don't have to "accept" them, just tell them to do one.

@AceNotInSpace , oh, come on. This identity is part of the TQ+ alphabet soup. Isn't that what the AA bit is?

If most people are like that then please explain sex symbols, the Dreamboys and the many "who do you fancy?" posts on here?

Some people today have a need to put themselves in identity boxes, which is rather odd and restrictive. I believe it’s often used by young women who perhaps don’t fully understand their reluctance to have sex with porn sick young men.

Asexuality has been backed and pushed by charities such as Stonewall, which has led to a theory that there is an agenda to create an identity that will fit the growing numbers of detransitioners who, because of puberty blockers and wrong sex hormones, will never desire sex, or have destroyed their ability to have sex. However you look at that angle is heartbreaking.

That’s what it used to mean.

(I hope this doesn’t come off the wrong way, but I literally laughed out loud to the ”because I’ve been married three times” part😀)

Asexuality has never meant that you didn't want sex, it means that you are not sexually attracted to anyone. Sex drive is libido.

I believe in the split model attraction theory. There is sexual attraction and romantic attraction, they are different and separate. In the same way you can be sexually attracted to someone without romantic attraction - ONS, fancying someone you don't know etc - you can be romantically attracted to/love someone without being sexually attracted to them.

But that doesn’t mean it needs its own label does it?

Also you can fancy people but if you were with them at that moment you might not want to have sex because you do t know them.

Sexuality is a spectrum. Being L G or B was unacceptable for a long time, and people could lose their jobs, be discriminated against etc.
No one’s lost their job for not wanting sex with someone, it’s all a nonsense.

I also know women who assumed they were asexual but later in life realised they were lesbians, and the problem all along was sex with men.

Except all the asexual people I know are 30+ years old, I'm almost 45 and realised I was asexual at about 12, although I didn't have a name for it then.

But, yes, it's actually all Stonewall and transgender people's fault.

You don't need a name and a special flag for not fancying sex much, if at all. It's a personality trait not an identity. There's nothing wrong with it, if that's you. But pretending it's some oppresses identity that's part of the "queer " community is horseshit.

It needs it's own label because I spend the first 25 years of my life severely depressed as I thought there must be something seriously wrong with me. I never found one person attractive, I never wanted a boyfriend or girlfriend. Surely that must have meant that I was broken, that there was something wrong with me? When I found out that I was asexual and normal, it changed my life.

Also, oops, studies have found that asexuals are more discriminated against that the LGB or even T.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1368430212442419?journalCode=gpia

I'll leave the abstract here.

Although biases against homosexuals (and bisexuals) are well established, potential biases against a largely unrecognized sexual minority group, asexuals, has remained uninvestigated. In two studies (university student and community samples) we examined the extent to which those not desiring sexual activity are viewed negatively by heterosexuals. We provide the first empirical evidence of intergroup bias against asexuals (the so-called “Group X”), a social target evaluated more negatively, viewed as less human, and less valued as contact partners, relative to heterosexuals and other sexual minorities. Heterosexuals were also willing to discriminate against asexuals (matching discrimination against homosexuals). Potential confounds (e.g., bias against singles or unfamiliar groups) were ruled out as explanations. We suggest that the boundaries of theorizing about sexual minority prejudice be broadened to incorporate this new target group at this critical period, when interest in and recognition of asexuality is scientifically and culturally expanding.

You don't need a name and a special flag for not fancying sex much, if at all. It's a personality trait not an identity. There's nothing wrong with it, if that's you. But pretending it's some oppresses identity that's part of the "queer " community is horseshit.

Once again we're invalidated and asexuality is assumed to be about "not fancying sex much" and "horseshit". I'm out.

But identifying something within yourself like that is normal, surely? As a personality trait.
What’s happening today is that people, many young and impressionable, are taking these identities and defining themselves around it, like anyone else cares.

People cared about LGB because they had fewer rights than their straight counterparts.
The other added identities are not the same.

The timing of the push for asexual identities is interesting. At no point did I blame trans people, they are as much victims of this ideology as anyone, if not more, but it’s very convenient to have an identity, in this society with a youthful rigid love of identities, to have a label that distracts from the horrors that has been pushed onto vulnerable children. Very convenient indeed.

It's a personality trait. It's a shame that the 00s was all full of Pornified culture that made anyone who wasn't like [insert name of whichever eejit] feel bad.

There are many things about many people that they feel deeply depressed about, and identifying it and resonating with it and others is very different to adopting it as an identity the way that is being done today. That’s the point.

I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m 100% certain that there’s more to you than your asexuality, which you’ve never been at risk of losing a job for, or housing, or hospital care, and if we ever met you wouldn’t tell me about your asexuality because it’s not important to others - and if you did, as happens very often now with the TQ+ I would find it off putting and make my excuses, because I just don’t need to know.

if we ever met you wouldn’t tell me about your asexuality because it’s not important to others

Unless you started asking me about my partner / marital status.

I had someone at work ask me whether condition x (nothing to do with sexuality) affected how I felt about potential dating partners.

I mumbled something untruthful, but if people accepted asexuality, it should have been acceptable to say “no, it doesn’t, because I don’t date - I’m asexual” (& yes, I know some asexual people do)

It isn’t. Because people like some posters on this thread won’t understand.

This isn't the 1950s. I'm in my late 50s. I have friends, colleagues and family members who never dated much or paired up or married. I don't sit sucking a lemon about them. It's None of My Business. If they want to confide in me, like anyone else, they are welcome. If they start wearing bloody badges and flags and spouting boring crap about their "awareness day", I'd run a mile in the opposite direction.

I’ve always seen asexuality as a bit of an umbrella term. So there are a few different things that could fall under the broader label of asexuality.
Some asexual people are sex repulsed and would never want to have sex at all.
Some may not want sex with others but still enjoy arousal and masturbation.
Some have no desire for sex, but don’t necessarily hate it/feel repulsed by it, and therefore may choose to have sex if their partner is not asexual in order to satisfy their partners needs.
To me if someone doesn’t experience sexual desire / attraction then asexual seems an appropriate term, regardless whether they happen to actually have sex for whatever reason.
Of course there will always be people in any demographic who may adopt a certain label for less legitimate reasons but I do think this is a very small minority. Identity/sexuality can be confusing and tricky to navigate and sometimes people will take a while to find what fits them/explore different labels to see what feels right. I definitely didn’t find mine overnight.

That said I can completely appreciate that it must be frustrating when you are trying to connect with people who closely align with your circumstances / identity and that having a broader range of people falling under the wider ‘umbrella’ can make this difficult. I’ve had a similar experience (not with asexuality but another minority identity) and it is hard. I don’t know what communities/platforms you use to connect but I’ve found seeking out more specific groups helpful. For example, on a forum perhaps creating a thread or on a Facebook community creating a sub group with more specific parameters. This way people with a different experience can still be included and can equally create their own equivalent threads or groups.

I’ve always seen asexuality as a bit of an umbrella term. So there are a few different things that could fall under the broader label of asexuality.
Some asexual people are sex repulsed and would never want to have sex at all.
Some may not want sex with others but still enjoy arousal and masturbation.
Some have no desire for sex, but don’t necessarily hate it/feel repulsed by it, and therefore may choose to have sex if their partner is not asexual in order to satisfy their partners needs.

Honestly this was always my understanding too, but it sounds like the OP is saying the new posters on the board are coming on and talking about enjoying/wanting sex, but still being asexual - which would seem to be an oxymoron.

I'm dismissive of it a) because it's self absorbed and a bit dull and b) because it is all part of the TQ+ grift to force team people for dubious purposes.
"you don't fancy it much? You're part of the queer community and you must stand with us on every bullshit issue we say. No one understands you like we do".
You are being played.
Just be yourself. Who cares whether you like /want to have sex or not. This isn't an episode of some school drama where all the y10 kids take the piss out of other kids that aren't sexually active