Hahahaha!!!!

[DialSquare]

I love JKR!

So I don’t think asexuality is oppressed in the same way as homosexuality or bisexuality can be. However it is frustrating that it’s so misunderstood and that people feel totally fine suggesting that people who are asexual must have hormone problems or be traumatised or must have been abused.

Asexuality is not about libido or whether the person is currently in a sexual relationship.

It is an absence of sexual attraction. Could be looking at a lamp rather than a person, and that’s any people not just someone you don’t fancy.

Sometimes an asexual person experiences romantic attraction - I do, I’m married to my wife and we’re having a baby. She knows I’m asexual and our relationship works for us. Arguably my asexuality doesn’t really “matter” any more because to the outside world we’re a regular same-sex couple and they may make their own assumptions about what that means.

But I do tell people sometimes, because it improves awareness and understanding and ideally will contribute to a society that makes fewer assumptions.

Any judgement or prejudice for me now comes because I’m in a same-sex marriage, and that’s just homophobia. But the comments about being abnormal or even comments that asexuality doesn’t exist and it’s just a medical problem to be fixed do hurt, as far as I know my body and hormones work fine - I’m successfully pregnant so that tracks, I’m just also asexual.

😁 yeah, bit ironic when the poster had plenty of hyperbole going on themselves there 😁

.Again, I'm very sorry you've had such negative feelings and experiences.

In this post you are talking about the pressure to get married/be in a relationship/have children
'So much value is put on finding a partner and having children, I feel like because I haven’t been able to do that people see me as less than. '

That's another social context I don't really recognise - it sounds very old-fashioned.

I agree that it is still the norm for a girl to grow up to be heterosexual, marry a man and have children; but it is not as strictly enforced as it used to be.

I've noticed that there's more-or-less equal chat stating 'they look down on us because we don't have husbands and families' and 'they look down on us because we don't have careers' or
'mothers are considered inferior' and 'childless women are considered inferior'

So some people see you 'as less than', some people see you as more than..
Becoming sexually active at a young age, settling down in a heterosexual relationship and having children, being a childless cat lady, putting your career first, being young free and single, not wanting sexual relationships at all, only wanting sex within a relationship, whatever.

A woman's place is in the wrong and you'll get flak from some side whatever choices you make.

maybe it’s not as noticeable when you haven’t lived this just how much of society and culture actually is built around having sexual desires and relationships

On the contrary the commercialisation and centring of sex in society and culture it's very noticeable, especially to feminists, so we're on the same page there.

Nailed it with a woman's place is in the wrong.

💯

Yep we all Know it. If you have too much sex you're a slag, if you don't have enough you're frigid.

If you're stay at home mum you're a zombie, if you have a career, you're neglectful parent.

It Really doesn't matter what women do. Because what they're doing isn't the point. They'll be criticised no matter what.

I've said it before, feminism should be taught in schools.

While we're busy here on this thread telling molko that she's not the sum of her sexual parts, she's battling with the newly common idea that she is.

Feminism would've addressed all of that. For girls and boys.

“Hey girlfriend, should we go up to the bedroom for a bit of privacy and a cuddle?”
”No thanks - I’m not into that kind of thing”
or even
‘No’

Awareness of what though. Every asexual person appears to have a different definition of what asexuality is.

TBH it just seems yet another thing that would be covered by ‘personality’

It seems to me that there are two different conceptions of being oppressed here in this thread. One is that you're oppressed when someone is actively out to get you or there is explicit and identifiable neglect or discrimination, such as LGB in the 80s, people from an ethnic out-group, or women athletes nowadays. The other is that you're oppressed when whatever you are is not adequately represented or understood because it does not fit some kind of norm or Platonic ideal in "society as a whole". The first conception is easy to understand and sympathise with. The problem with the second is that it could easily include trainspotters, wargamers, binge drinkers, cannabis farmers, beer can collectors, crown green bowlers, historical re-enacters, and, well, almost everyone else. There is no end to it. I don't think not being represented is the same as being oppressed. I'm also not sure that just not being understood is oppression either.

This is how I see it 🙂
Not LGBT myself but don't feel the need to go saying "where's my Straight Pride?" on Pride threads or "what about us straight women, why do we need to know you're a lesbian?" on Lesbian Day of which there probably is one 😁

I agree with that, but doubt there's a Lesbian day of visibility that is allowed to only include adult human females.

Has someone posted ‘what about us who feel sexual feelings, what about our day’ on this thread?

don't feel the need to go saying "where's my Straight Pride?" on Pride threads or "what about us straight women, why do we need to know you're a lesbian?" on Lesbian Day of which there probably is one

Has anyone done this on this thread?

No, but let's not let facts get in the way 🙄

It's probably worth remembering in the midst of this, that the day of visibility was 'co-created' by Yasmin Benoit. An 'activist' whose main aim seems to be building her profile, and who claimed to know she was asexual at 10, because she didn't fancy boys or care about dating.

In many way it's all just so much late stage capitalism. Commodification of every aspect of the self. Maybe it's harmless or maybe it distracts from actual structural inequality. After all it's much easier to wave a flag and say "look how inclusive we all are" than to spend any money tangibly improving life for the most vulnerable in society.

I kind of agree with this tbh. I'm happily single, have been for a few years. People are always trying to convince me to date. Or (even worse) making suggestions as to how I could better myself and find a partner. The fact I don't want one is such an alien concept to a lot of people.

I'm not asexual though. In fact I love sex. And I guess the difference between me and someone who is asexual is that I have had relationships before. Mind you, that means that when I say I don't want one right now a lot of people think I'm lying and just making excuses because I can't find someone.

I think unless you match what society says you should be, someone will always think you're wrong.

I think unless you match what society says you should be, someone will always think you're wrong.

The thing is, even if you're respectably married with 2.4 children, someone will always be doing it visibly "better"; bigger house, more exotic holidays, over-achieving kids.

I'm horsey, so since the formative age of 13 when I started helping out at my local stables, I've known an awful lot of no-nonsense horsey women. The type who love horses and dogs, but are unapologetically less keen on people. Who aren't interested in having a partner, and don't care what other people might think. Who definitely don't give a shit about their appearance and what car they drive. I think it's really good for teenagers to be around people like this.

What strikes me is that, if we really went into every single sexual interest/object/lack of, we really could go to town and have a (a)sexuality day every day of the year. People have all kinds of odd things that get them going, some sexual, some not remotely considered sexual.

So Stonewall are keen on all these things as it gives them something that makes them still relevant, now gay rights are legally dealt with. The roll out of trans rights isn’t going the way they planned, so expanding into easier tasks, such as “visibility” keep them in the public eye and probably in funding from public bodies which still believe they are relevant in DEI terms.

If they really wanted to help youngsters with complex and unusual sexualities, then an Understanding Consent week would actually hit much harder and help many more people than individual “visibility” days.

Only do what you are comfortable with. People like weird things and, so long as it’s consensual, that’s fine.
^^
Don’t take risks or allow yourself to be hurt, if you don’t want that. Have the self-confidence to say no.
^^
People have different sex drives, from very high, right down to none. It’s fine to have sex. It’s fine not to.

There is no need for details about anyone’s individual sex life. As I said before, that only needs to be discussed if you are considering a relationship that might be expected to involve sex.

Someone who doesn’t want a relationship is not necessarily asexual and someone asexual can want to have a relationship, so it’s not a particularly useful label. Even in this thread, people are using it for all kinds of differing experiences.

I’m another who could describe myself that way following menopause, like many other women in this thread. If I decide I want a relationship at some point, I will try to navigate that, but I don’t need a label, I can simply explain the situation. I realize that would have been far more difficult when young, but isn’t everything?

I have never been asked what my sexuality is, where does this happen and who does the asking?

Why are all the hyped up ‘visibility days’ based on sexual orientation, why do we have to endlessly discuss it? What about visibility days for people that are actually in need and could do with one, such as disabled people, where is the hyperbole for them, where are the lanyards and the trains and the zebra crossings for them? Who listens or even cares about the plight of disabled people in this country? They are not choosing to ‘identify’ as disabled, they actually ARE and are so often overlooked or ignored.

Most disabilities have a day.

January 2025
4 – World Braille Day.
20 – Blue Monday.

February 2025
1 – Dignity Action Day.
6 – Time to Talk Day.
4 – World Cancer Day.
10 – International Epilepsy Day.
28 – Rare Disease Day.

March 2025
Brain Tumour Awareness Month.
3 – World Hearing Day.
17- 23 – Neurodiversity Celebration Week.
21 – World Down Syndrome Day.
30 – World Bipolar Day.

April 2025
2 – World Autism Day.
11 – World Parkinson’s Day.
28-4 – Action for Brain Injury week.

May 2025
10 – World Lupus Day.
12-18 – Mental Health Awareness week.
15 – Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD).
19-25 – Dementia Action week.

June 2025
2-8 – World Heart Rhythm week.
9-15 – Carers’ week.
9-15 – Men’s Health week.
16-22 – Diabetes week.
16-22 – Learning Disability week.
22-28 – Deafblind Awareness week.

July 2025
24 – Samaritans’ Awareness Day.
25 – National Schizophrenia Awareness day.

September 2025
18-24 – Occupational Health Awareness Week.
23 – International Day of Sign Languages.
29-5 – National Inclusion week.

October 2025
ADHD Awareness Month.
Dysautonomia Awareness Month.
6 – World Cerebral Palsy Day.
6-12 – National Work Life Week.
6-13 – Dyslexia Awareness Week.
9 – World Sight Day.
10 – World Mental Health Day.
18 – World Menopause Day.
20 – World Osteoporosis Day.
25 – PToS Awareness Day.

November 2025
TBC – Purple Tuesday.
TBC – Carers’ Rights Day.
TBC – UK Disability History Month.

December 2025
3 – International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Please show me the hype for any of these days, that in any way matches what we see for sexual orientation days/weeks/months, where are the posters on the tube, the disability lanyards round the necks of NHS workers, the trains/buses/taxis decked out in ‘disability colours’, the celebrities taking photo opportunities with disabled people.

You can’t, because they don’t exist, as the current narrative is let’s bore everybody to death with a bit more navel gazing about the latest made up capital letter or abbreviation to join the gender wang. Disabled people’s lives are hard, they don’t choose for it to be so, and they largely just have to get on with it, they don’t have the time or the energy to be so bloody self absorbed.

I think it depends if you're in those communities or not. I know various big landmarks have been lit up in the appropriate colours for Huntingtons Awareness, I know that 3000 people attended Bipolar UK's 'let's stop the stigma' event and I presume other disability advocacy groups do their various things. It isn't as big as Pride, but probably bigger than Asexuality Awareness Day which I don't actually think anyone outside of a corner of the asexual community knew or cared about until JKR decided to have a pop.

So...I guess maybe she has done a good thing in that I think she's made more people aware of Asexuality Awareness Day than before and threads like this are eloquently demonstrating why it's needed.

I have very close family who are in those ‘communities’ and they are largely invisible and get discriminated against and treated poorly on a regular basis. There are no big mouth celebrities like David Tennant about to stand up and show their support at awards ceremonies for them are there?

Two of my nieces are lesbians, they don’t bang on about it, they just get on with their lives, they would no more expect to be treated differently than they would fly to the moon. They have no interest in marching with other ‘members of their community’ or waving rainbow flags.

’I don't actually think anyone outside of a corner of the asexual community knew or cared about until JKR decided to have a pop’

Why should anyone care about your sexuality? Do you care about mine?!

I paraphrase JKR here by saying live your life however you want, sleep or don’t sleep with whoever you want, but please don’t expect anyone else to acknowledge or care about it. Hearing about people’s sexuality is about as interesting as hearing about their dreams or being shown their holiday photos, in that it’s not interesting at all.

I think the vast majority of teens struggle to understand themselves, including their sexuality in many cases.

I absolutely agree, but obviously it is much harder to understand where your sexuality lies if you don’t know it exists as an option. I thought everybody was either straight, gay or bisexual and that therefore I must be too, I thought I just had to figure out who I wanted to have sex and relationships with. I know lots of others feel the same too and experiment and struggle with their sexuality, I’m not saying that is unique to being asexual, but it is certainly an added difficulty to experiment and find no answer. I just wish I’d known being asexual was an option as I kept having sex and relationships I found deeply unpleasant past my teens and well into my 30s assuming if I did so with enough people I would cure myself of hating sex and figure out who I was attracted to. It would have been helpful for me to know asexuality existed and that there were other people who also weren’t attracted to either sex as I genuinely believe if I had been able to identify as asexual when in my teens or early twenties it would have saved me from a lot of unpleasant sexual encounters. I think when you feel different having a label/ identity which you can share with others so you feel less alone is helpful and I think asexuality being more recognised as a label is positive for that reason, hopefully it will help
some asexual people figuring out their sexuality come to the answer quicker and feel less alone.