Asexuality

[NettleTea]

So I know asexuality is a thing. Low sex drive diminishing to nowt. Or a low libido that often doesnt get airtime because the media would have it that its the normal state of affairs for everyone to be gagging for it 24/7

Or hand in hand with things like ASD

Or developes because you are in a sexually unfulfilling relationship and if you dont use it, etc.

It can come and go, or can be a constant

However Ive seen a fair bit of it being included now in teaching materials for schools, and I wondered if this was due to trying to normalise the absence of sexual feeling so that children who undergo hormone replacement and puberty blockers, and as a result have no developement of normal sexual feelings wont know that its not very unusual in teens/young 20s. Its only fairly recently that this loss/absence of sexual function/drive has been coming to light, and its only recently that teaching about asexuality has been included in the curriculum.

More teens might identify as asexual if the drugs they are on mean they aren't experiencing puberty, but I'm sure the increase in teaching about asexuality is probably part of the increase in teaching about LGBT+ issues.

I personally think its hard to know for definite where you sit on the sexual to asexual spectrum until you have gone through puberty.

But I think we do need to raise awareness that sexual drive and appetite is on a sliding scale and that's fine.

Hi Nettle,

I can't speak as to the reasons for it being included in the curriculum, although I am glad it is being included.

But I wanted to clarify what exactly asexuality is, because there's a lot of misconceptions out there.

It is not a lack of libido, low sex-drive/no sex-drive, or a choice to remain celibate for whatever reason.

Asexuality is about a lack of sexual attraction, not behaviour, although understandably they can be linked.

I suppose the easiest way to explain it is in the context of any other sexuality. If you are heterosexual you experience sexual attraction to people of the opposite sex, if you are homosexual you experience sexual attraction to people of the same sex. You as a gay person could choose to have sex with people of the opposite sex, but you aren't sexually attracted to them...although you may love them in a romantic way or find them pleasing to look at.

If you are asexual you don't experience sexual attraction to anyone, but you may still choose to have sex (for physical pleasure, to pleasure a partner, for intimacy, for fun) and you may still have a high sex-drive.

As an asexual person you may also experience romantic attraction and want a romantic relationship, which can be heteroromantic or homoromantic or biromantic.

OP I wrote a long response to you, but it got eaten when my app crashed.

Basically it was to reference that asexuality was brought up in the Keira Bell case against the Tavistock - the Tavistock was challenged that puberty blocker treatment might mean that children would never be able to experience orgasm and this was handwaved away with "plenty of adults are happily asexual" or similar.

Your misunderstanding of what asexuality actually is is the reason why it should be included on the curriculum and disscused.

yes, I admit I do not know what it means.
I do know that libido can chop and change throughout life though, and also personally as an ASD woman my sexuality has changed over time too. Nothing feels particularly fixed to me.
But then Im ASD so my awareness of 'normal' is, as Ive been told, way out of whack in a great many issues.
I also have no concept of personal identity, especially regarding gender. I am female. I know that, Ive birthed two children. But I dont have any inner sense of femininity or masculinity and have interests and characteristics that span the accepted field of such

Asexuality means different things to different people. It may indeed be the result of a low libido. Or it may be because someone isn't generally sexually attracted to other people.

No, I don't think it's a conspiracy to normalise the absence of sexual feeling in children on puberty blockers.

Nowadays everything is about inclusion, diversity and recognising/accepting difference. It doesn't matter that only a small minority of people might be asexual, the concept still deserves to be recognised and 'normalised', especially in our hyper-sexualised society.

And it's important to recognise that it doesn't just apply in direct relationships - we're bombarded with sexuality (and relationships) in TV, pop music, advertising etc which subconsciously promotes obsession with sex/romance being the norm. For some people it isn't and it's good if giving a name to their (absence of) feelings lets them be more accepting of themselves and not feel abnormal.

I had a look around the Internet and this seemed the clearest explanation, although as with most of the new identities it seems to more clearly explain what it "isn't" rather than what it "is".

time.com/2889469/asexual-orientation/

There does seem to be this desire to label every human variation with some kind of "identity". I can see the logic in a way - if my daughter labelled herself "demisexual" to make it easier to reject the hook-up culture then I'd think that was OK. And if calling yourself asexual makes it easier to stop people saying "oh, just wait till you meet the right person" then so be it. It just seems sad that we're driving people towards this.

wp.wwu.edu/westernaces/what-is-asexuality/

Asexuality is not a synonym for celibacy. (There are celibate aces and promiscuous aces and aces everywhere in between.)

It seems to be another term that's undergone definition drift as it's changed more into an identity label.

Thanks to the posters who have tried to explain. I have to admit, I'm finding quite hard to fully understand all the different aspects - behaviours, romantic feelings, attraction etc. If I'm struggling to get my head around it all, I do wonder how well this is being taught (and digested) in schools.
If schools teach kids that not all people are interested in romantic or sexual relationships, and that's absolutely fine, does it need to go an further? I don't know. I'm feeling old and out of touch.

@Flywheel

Thanks to the posters who have tried to explain. I have to admit, I'm finding quite hard to fully understand all the different aspects - behaviours, romantic feelings, attraction etc. If I'm struggling to get my head around it all, I do wonder how well this is being taught (and digested) in schools. If schools teach kids that not all people are interested in romantic or sexual relationships, and that's absolutely fine, does it need to go an further? I don't know. I'm feeling old and out of touch.

Schools could just be teaching that we should respect individual differences but instead everything has to be given a label.

Thanks loopsdefruit for trying to explain. I still don't really get it though I'm afraid. I guess I'm finding it hard to understand the apparent seperation of "is sexually attracted to" and "would like to actually have sex with". So in your example of a gay man, he's attracted to other men but he may for various reasons choose to have hetero sex. However I struggle to imagine that a gay man would choose hetero sex for fun, intimacy, or pleasure. I can imagine them doing it from a sense of duty, out of a desire to have children, or as a way to stay in the closet, but that all comes back to it being sex they don't want to have. I consider myself (broadly speaking) straight. I'm physically attracted to both men and women, and I've certainly had romantic feelings towards both men and women, but I've never had sex with a woman and the idea of it makes me feel uncertain, whereas I know that I enjoy sex with men (for the avoidance of doubt I mean sex which involves a penis). Its possible that "straight" isn't the best label for me but tbh I'm not interested in labelling myself and since I've only ever had het relationships it's just easiest to say "straight". So I can imagine an ace person not feeling sexually attracted to anyone, and I can imagine an ace person having sex that they don't want to have for various reasons, but I struggle to understand an ace person having a high libido, wanting to have sex, or finding sex pleasurable. And what if you're a female ace but only like having sex that involves a penis and not a vulva? Are you hetero-asexual? Or are ace people by definition equally interested/disinterested in sex which either sex? It's one of those things that I thought I understood until I started hearing that you can be ace and enjoy having lots of sex. But I'm very open to learning about it.

@nauticant

wp.wwu.edu/westernaces/what-is-asexuality/

Asexuality is not a synonym for celibacy. (There are celibate aces and promiscuous aces and aces everywhere in between.)

It seems to be another term that's undergone definition drift as it's changed more into an identity label.

I must be thick. How can you be promiscuous and asexual?

Largely because the meaning of asexual is heading in the direction of "asexual means anyone who identifies as being asexual". Which I suppose could be OK except it leaves high and dry people for whom it's a real thing and not simply an identity claim.

It is not a lack of libido, low sex-drive/no sex-drive ... Asexuality is about a lack of sexual attraction,

Um, is this like the Lewis Caroll thing about "the name of the thing" versus "what the thing is called"?

The only distinction I can see there is that maybe you have a sex drive, just not towards people? So you enjoy masturbation, but not sex?

How can you be promiscuous and asexual?

You have sex with lots of people but don't really want to?

Neither of those interpretations/distinctions sound particularly healthy.

Largely because the meaning of asexual is heading in the direction of "asexual means anyone who identifies as being asexual".

I suspect that's it. It's just another club. It means whatever anyone wants it to mean, because to say to someone they weren't asexual would be invalidating them.

I must be thick. How can you be promiscuous and asexual?

I think I can understand an asexual person being promiscuous if they feel they need to be "fixed" in some way, or if they want to prove to other people they're "normal."

But I assume they wouldn't enjoy it.

I suspect that's it. It's just another club. It means whatever anyone wants it to mean, because to say to someone they weren't asexual would be invalidating them.

This is it. I've yet to see any way in which asexual people are discriminated against on the grounds of their sexual orientation rather than for things that also apply to others like not marrying and not having children.

because to say to someone they weren't asexual would be invalidating them

And as a result it provides a young person with a killer response when asked to have sex with someone they don't fancy but they don't feel confident enough simply to refuse. It's a way of reinstating the now old-fashioned principle of choosing to have sex but only with certain people.

It's a way of reinstating the now old-fashioned principle of choosing to have sex but only with certain people.

And that re-emphasises an important point when dealing with all this stuff. What a word "means" is less important than what it "achieves".

All these labels, and all this rhetoric, are post-modern. They don't have concrete stable definitions, they are language tools for specific purposes.

I had a look around the Internet and this seemed the clearest explanation

I cannot see any difference between that definition and low libido. I don't really see any value in making your personal feelings about sex into an identity.

But that doesn't work, if you are a promiscuous ace. Anyway, I thought it meant a lack of sexual desire.

I'm interested in the numbers of people who are ace and why. Pornography? Real life encounters doesn't cut it for some people and we all know how pornography has impacted on people's lives. Drugs taken in childhood for things like ADHD? Has anyone studied the long term impact of those drugs? Childhood trauma eg csa?

I do also think there is a need to want to belong and have a "label" to fit in.

An article from 2019 in the Independent suggests trying to pinpoint ace is hard because it can mean very different things to different people and 3/4 of people did not get the definition right in a survey.

What is gc issue with asexuals?
Never understood it.
Reddit gc would so often have mocking, condescending threads about aces.

I hope that shit don’t catch up here.

Okey, about 1-4% of the population doesn’t feel sexual attraction, is that really so scary for you?
Life is tough enough already, don’t need this garbage.

It's pretty hard to understand if you don't experience it I suppose. I'm asexual but I love my girlfriend and am romantically attracted to her, I also think she's pretty. I just am not sexually attracted to her.

Our relationship is intimate and loving, we kiss and cuddle, we just don't have sex. If she wanted to have sex then I probably would do it, because I love her, and I might even enjoy it because the physical act would stimulate my physical body and my biological responses would happen. I still wouldn't be sexually attracted to her.

As to whether asexual discrimination exists or not, it probably is not present in a legal sense unless you happen to be in a relationship that is otherwise discriminated against (same-sex relationship for example). However there is a certain social view that if you're not having sex then you relationships means less, or that friendships are less 'important' than romantic relationships (and romantic relationships must include sex or must eventually include sex).

It's about understanding that for some people they don't experience sexual attraction at all, and differentiating that from what they choose to do.

Like, a bisexual woman who marries a man does not become straight just because she's married to a man, and she doesn't become a lesbian if she marries a woman. An asexual person is asexual even if they have a lot of sex, it is not a synonym for celibacy.

Sexuality is just one aspect of love and relationships, although an important one, and discussing asexuality can help people understand it more but also enable wider discussions about the difference between sexual and romantic attraction which is important for people to understand as it can help people to understand themselves and find meaningful relationships.

It's become part of the rainbow umbrella family.

Only wanting to have sex with a person of your choice isn't a sexualkifs y, neither is not being interested in sex.

It's great to tell kids that sexual attraction can be lacking, or that it waxes and wanes.

But to turn it into another way to claim oppression - and flags - is tedious.

What this thread tells me, in its lack of clarity about the term asexuality and the way in which it is a purposed term rather than a clear one, is that there needs to be much more clarity about meanings before this is being taught to children. In that way it should be put in the same category as "gender" and "gender identity".