Hahahaha!!!!

[DialSquare]

I love JKR!

How many people announce to the world they are asexual? I’m trying to think of a situation where this announcement would be needed beyond your friendship group or dating life that would require an actual day of visibility. Most people just don’t care - it’s not that interesting.

Surely you could say the same thing about being heterosexual or homosexual.

Interesting enough to insight all this passion against it though. Very curious.

People also use this argument against gay people, that it’s “not interesting” and like to say that homophobia isn’t real any more because marriage equality has happened. It’s just far more nuanced than that though, isn’t it?

The level of dismissal and misunderstanding proves to me that they actually should have their day of visibility. One day you can’t pretend they don’t exist or aren’t important or, ahem, interesting enough for you.

Well it's not interesting, it's just another blue haired look at me I'm special thing.

I demand left handed, cricket fan, crossword addict day. Bow down to me and recognise my life struggles.

See, it's rubbish, isn't it.

I really don't understand why it's a positive thing to "come out" as asexual, and to see that as your "identity", and to demand that your identity be celebrated and centred. It used to be that men who don't marry were assumed to be closet gays - "confirmed bachelors". And women who lived together were "companions", which was rather more accepting. Those who would now be considered asexual had to endure the homophobic comments. I would have thought the greater acceptance of homosexuality in recent decades would be helpful to such men, but the zeitgeist demands that everyone should come out and display their "identity" - which is always about sex or gender, as if they are the only things that define people.

To a very large extent, most people are happy to "live and let live". I have relatives who live or have lived quite unconventional lives, and they were always accepted within the wider family as being their eccentric selves. I really don't think it is healthy to encourage so much labelling and navel-gazing.

And left handed people have been treated far worse across hundred years of history than people who choose not to have sex. Including my dad as a kid in the 50s who had his hand tied behind his back in school to force him to write with the other one. So people who choose to be celibate can frankly button it, no one cares.

There's been a bit too much well intentioned and performative 'respect' for everything and anything, and not enough critical thinking, and it's not gone well.

Humour plays a part in regulating social fads and behaviours in a society. And in maintaining normal levels of resilience.

The level of dismissal and misunderstanding proves to me that they actually should have their day of visibility. One day you can’t pretend they don’t exist or aren’t important or, ahem, interesting enough for you.

Of course that "proof" works for any made-up group, doesn't it?

If anything is nonsensical, then it will be dismissed and misunderstood, therefore it's not nonsensical.

So the only thing that can be nonsensical is something that is not dismissed and is understood.

Which is of course, nonsense.

I’m sorry, is this a struggle competition? Is there not enough pride in one’s identity for everyone to have a slice? Surely anyone who has received prejudice or hate or felt they have to hide who they are deserves the chance to share their experience with those in the same situation and realise that it’s okay to be exactly who they are, whatever that is.

Or shall we just tell your dad to shut up and stop moaning, why is he even talking about it when racism was much worse and most children in the 50’s were abused at school. “Get on with it” etc.

It’s called basic fucking kindness. Some of us have it, some of us do genuinely care about these peoples experiences. If you don’t, why do you feel the need to comment on them at all? Just get on with your own life and focus on your own shit. You know, like you’re telling these people to do.

So the lived experience of an entire demographic can be ignored because they aren’t you and your experience, and therefore you get to call it nonsense.

Isnt this the same argument once used to say being gay wasn’t real?

And when you’re lefthanded and a redhead, life gets difficult.

The term asexual was first defined in 1897, could you please elaborate on your use of “fad”

Lets use being left handed, as a PP brought that up as a comparison. Wasn’t that a “fad” that could be corrected out of people too, until it was later and finally understood as a normal difference across the great spectrum of humanity?

Why is corrective rape not seen as a big enough issue to be included as a topic in the Stonewall Ace in the UK report? Imho that’s more serious than work colleagues not understanding why you don’t have or want a partner.

MissDoubleU Some people go their entire lives with absolutely no desire, need or want to be sexual in any way. And that’s fine. They don’t need cured or corrected
100% agree with this. There have always been people like this, I had a couple of aunts and an uncle who happily described themselves as 'not interested in that kind of thing.'

and the quote honestly disgusting responses from a lot of you
Disgusting? What's disgusting about what most people have said here, which is: yeah not sexually attracted to other people, fine no problem.

here is exactly why they do need a day of visibility.
But this is where your logic fails: if, as we all agree and are absolutely fine about, there are and have always been people who do not experience sexual attraction towards other people, why do they need 'a day of visibility'?
Why does one fairly ordinary and unremarkable aspect need [a] to be visible and [b] to have a 'day'?

Not wanting or needing to be sexual in any day is just a thing. It's not a new thing. It's normal for some people. That's fine. Nobody objects to that.

That's very clear to me - is it not clear to you?

The entire reason gay people need to be protected is because it is visible when you go out with a same-sex partner.

There is no need for any other sexuality to be discussed or on show, other than when you are considering having a relationship with someone. Therefore, protection and visibility is not needed.

Why is it that, just because it was essential to make things easier for gay people to have relationships without hiding, we now have to openly discuss and declare every single aspect of something that should only be discussed in private?

Fine to educate children at school that they only need to have sex if they want it, and in a way that suits them. That’s part of consent.

I’ll be glad when the current frenzy for being openly perverted and advertising your kinks and fetishes is over.

Technically I'm asexual right now as I'm not having sex, I'm sitting on my sofa pondering what to cook for dinner.

It's a bit odd that every life choice needs a day. Should we add incel day to the list? After all, that's apparently an identity.

I’m not seeing any passion - things that aren’t interesting don’t generate that. People have varying levels of sex drives, just as people have different food preferences.

What about my other points?

And indeed, 'jokes' by Willoughby that he's going to bundle her and other well known gender critical women into a van.

The 'I'm not a fan' lot are naive in the extreme. His behaviour is becoming increasingly more unhinged and attention seeking.

That’s not how Asexuality is defined (or any sexuality, actually.) and you either know that and are trolling or you are actually not very clever. It’s not a momentary decision or thought, it’s fundamental to who they are.

It’s radical for me that people here can believe people can be straight (not a choice) and gay (not a choice) and also bisexual (not a choice) but as soon as someone says they categorically have no sexual desire at all they are just making it up for attention.

Perhaps they need a day because anmong many other injustices Asexuality is still considered a mental health condition, rather than a sexuality. This is something that was hard fought for by Gay/Lesbian activists also. And I’m sure many people said “why do they need a day, just get on with it.”

For the user asking about the Stonewall website, it actually does reference conversion therapy in relation to be Asexual and the absolute need for better education to stop this happening.

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/news/new-research-shining-light--e2-80-98dehumanising-e2-80-99-discrimination-faced-ace-people

Having no sexual desire is not attention seeking. Demanding a day of visibility to announce that lack of sexual desire is.

There isn’t a demand for one, it just IS. You’re actually demanding there not be one, which is more attention seeking than letting the day exist for the people it exists for.

I presume that it came about through a demand to be recognised.

Im demanding nothing.

I don't see any comparison between being left-handed and being forced to use your right hand, and being asexual and um.... not having sex.

If asexual people - which I accept is different from just not feeling interested in a sexual relationship at the moment - don't want to have sex, nobody is forcing them to, unless they happen to be, tragically, amongst the 70,000 or so reported rapes in the UK last year. Then they are survivors of rape, along with the 69,999 others who didn't want sex, and deserve the same love and support as any other survivor.

But apart from that - don't want sex? don't have sex. It's not new, it's not unusual, it's your choice; what makes it 'an identity' and why should it have 'a day'?

What a wonderful word soup. Right that's clarified to me on having soup for dinner, thank you.

Or a demand to end the hate, prejudice and misunderstanding that they have to live with. Another article below with further stats and reference to this.

www.thepinknews.com/2023/10/29/asexual-research-stonewall-yasmin-benoit/