The Asexual spectrum.

[TastesLikeStrawberriesOnASummerEvening]

I've been informed recently about this.
I thought it was had no sexual feelings, or had sex, but apparently not.
Now I know better.

I absolutely didn't laugh, promise.

How is a heterosexual couple who don’t have sex every night part of the LGBT community🤔

Its not simply identifying into oppression- the couple mentioned at the start of the thread aren’t really oppressed even with these ids.

It’s identifying OUT of the oppressor class- we may be a white, middle class, hetero couple but we’re not THOSE white, middle class, heterosexual couples so we don’t have to look at how our behaviour affects others. So in actual fact even MORE of the oppressor class.

A friend of mine who ditched me for being a Terf, came out as bisexual, I'd known her for 22 years, she's no more bisexual than I'm a leprechaun, and then she started identifying as queer.
I'm quite glad she ditched me, saved me the bother.
Oh, she made a TikTok about me too!
She's a middle aged mother of four ffs.

I embrace my TERF (tea exclusive radical feminist) identity. Shamelessly.

I own this. It's obviously all about the tea.

Couldn’t agree more. Who has the time to create all those pretty patterns on flags and fabricate in infinitesimal detail variations of the “asexual identity”?

I also dislike tea, but I drink it for the sake of politeness sometimes.

I acknowledge my privilege in being able to do this and will now remain silent about this important identifier.

It's fun to ask what the implied comparison sexuality might be, in terms of this new way of defining so many new types of sexuality as part of the alphabets. The one which excludes you from being wonderfully queer, the boring mainstream one.

It seems to be being randy 24/7, and being willing to copulate with anyone willing to do so, anywhere, under all conditions. So something from extreme porn?

You can't create a whole new taxonomy which is based on something this bonkers and have it not be ridiculed by almost everyone. Besides, it would put almost every single person into some type of queer category, so then they are the majority, not an oppressed minority. And certainly not marginalised.

In light of this I havve decided to come out as Non-B*mary as I can't be arsed about this gender crap.

(Missing a 'u' on purpose.)

I feel like a bit of a numpty to never have figured this out before.
These young women have been coerced into having sex and the only way they can frame the violation is as identity-invalidation.
Goodness my irritation has melted into compassion.

I also identify as tea-repulsed, but have recently got into herbal teas, and I am concerned that my community won't think I'm valid any more.

Solidarity </3

Herbal tea is not tea. If it doesn’t contain the tea plant in it, it isn’t tea, and I won’t be forced to believe other people’s reality.

Drop the tea

I believe if you like herbal tea, you're probably a communist.

Because, say it with me, proper tea is theft.

Asexuality very much binds identity and boundaries together, such that it can be difficult to separate one from the other.

And because identity is seen as more important than personal boundaries (see for example the enormous pressure on women to accommodate trans women), invalidation is seen as a greater crime than boundary violation.

I think I unconsciously knew that me being asexual was a better protection against the advances of politically "queer" people, than simply saying no I wasn't interested.

Which is one reason why the definition of "asexual" changed from someone simply not wanting to engage in sex at all into a much less clear identity thing and to include those who have an enthusiastic and active sex life. Also, according to modern thinking, identity things can be fluid. These charactertistics nullify the boundary-enhancing defensive power of being "asexual".

A: Shall we have sex?
B: No, I don't want to. Beside I'm asexual.
A: So? Lot's of asexual people enjoy having sex. What's to stop you being like them?

Oh very good indeed.

Not having sexual desire is a state of being. It doesn’t need a label or validation. Nobody actually cares. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with saying to someone ‘I just don’t want to have sex with you.’

Exactly. Nobody cares. Never have sex or have it six times a day every day - nobody gives a damn as long as it’s consensual, takes place in private and doesn’t involve breaking the law.

That's the common sense view, the outside view, the "That's nice, dear. Shall we have fish fingers or pasta for dinner?" response to the I need to be speshul navel-gazers.

But the inside view is different for those finding it a struggle

Some people need to hear that the world does not revolve around them. Some people need to hear that they're OK.

I think I unconsciously knew that me being asexual was a better protection against the advances of politically "queer" people, than simply saying no I wasn't interested.

Thank you for this, I think it is a really good point, but it also shows how wrong we have gone in regards to sex and sexual relationships. The pendulum has perhaps swung too far the other way.

Doing this through identity, however, is ultimately unstable, and maybe even destabilizing of the personality. And also I'd argue reductive.

Just tell young people - it's normal to want sex. It's normal not to. It's normal, in some sense, to have weird sexual desires. At a certain level, these things just are.

And then you need to be adding that there is actually more to navigating sex than these things. Some sexual desires are things people shouldn't do, and probably should avoid thinking about too. Sometimes people may want other things - a marriage, or children, that will affect their sexual behaviour. Sometimes a persons career goals, or religious beliefs, may mean that the sexual desires they have aren't something they will want to pursue when push comes to shove. Often too, changes in sexual desire over time will have to be managed, maybe with consideration for a long term partner.

Not everything that makes up who we are has to be an identity, be it our sexuality, the fact that we like certain kinds of music, being fat, having ADHD, or even things like our ethnicity or race. Some will strongly contribute to our sense of who we are, or our experience of life, but who we are also transcends all of these things.

@JellySaurus I think that was beautifully put.

Who we are and how we move through the world are influenced by circumstance as much as any innate sense of self. We often have little control of external events, I wonder if that's what is behind this clinging to identity.
I expect that's been said before, it's hard to keep up with the ebb and flow of this issue.

Apologies @TempestTost my bad.

I agree with you entirely, @TempestTost, particularly Just tell young people - it's normal to want sex. It's normal not to. It's normal, in some sense, to have weird sexual desires. At a certain level, these things just are. But do our young people listen? They are so caught up in identitarianism.

Yeah, but a lot of that is because of adults going along with it.

I was about to say, in the past, adults didn't stop kids from having their fads, nicknames, etc, among themselves. Teens were goths, or punks, or metalheads, they had weird names, parents mainly ignored it and kept using the kids real names, kids expected this. So the adults represented something above these kinds of shallow attempts at identity creation, which the teens themselves eventually grew out of. Maybe they still loved the music, even the style, but they clearly understood it wasn't essentially to who they were as people, and that public life sometimes meant wearing a cheezy uniform rather than your preferred togs and you were still you.

However, I have suddenly thought - I have noticed, probably since my kids were young, an increasing tendency for parents to still themselves keep these identities somewhat, and especially to try and transfer them on to their kids when they buy them clothes, send them to activities, and so on. Lots more adults into things like comic cons, for example, and much more strongly invested than many teens were when I was young going to that stuff.

So maybe identarianism is just more of an extension of this. But in any case, I think adults need to show the way.