question to asexuals

To be fair, the asexual community still has the jury out on the specific definition of sexual attraction/desire and asexuality.

What's the difference when you say "could have sex" and "want to have sex", though? I'm not so sure I understand.

 

That sounds a lot like me honestly. I'm asexual. For me personally, I feel sexually attracted to people but I feel no desire to actually have sex with people ever. I avoid sex.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that you look up autochorissexual.

The definition is as follows: "a person that experiences a disconnection between oneself and a sexual target/object of arousal; may involve sexual fantasies or arousal in response to erotica or pornography, but lacking any desire to be a participant in the sexual activities therein." Thus far, it's a subset of asexuality.

 

To be clear, I wasn't saying you were autochorissexual. I was asking if it felt right. I can't ever tell you your orientation because I'm not you and don't know what you're feeling.

And by the way, most of the ace community knows about this subset. I think. It's appeared in AVEN a couple of times, and also goes by the name "aegosexual".

Also I gave you the definition? It's best that you use the commonly accepted definition than swap it out for yours, then explain what it means to you personally. (This doesn't just apply to sexuality. In generally everything, start with the definition, then explain.)

 

Hey mpw94! May I suggest that you may be going about this backwards? You have to simply be honest with yourself, work to understand your sexual feelings and attractions, and then accept who you are. Labels are arbitrary and artificial. People don't fit into nice, tidily-labeled categories. Likewise, individuals' sexuality doesn't either. Instead of trying to find a category that you can put yourself into, perhaps you should focus on self-awareness first. Honestly, what do labels/categories matter? To me, they are only useful if/when you feel it necessary to describe your sexuality to other people.

Just some thoughts.

Stay strong and proud!

 

Brytaleith had some good points. I've questioned this a lot, as I do feel some base attraction to people, but would never want to or actually have sex.

In an effort to have simple labels, though, I just title myself as queer ace. Yeah, sometimes I think people are hot. But I've never wanted a sexual experience nor do I forsee one in the future.

 

I didn't have any sexual attraction whatsoever until I was sixteen. And I probably would have continued on like that if my best friend hadn't... Influenced me. Okay how do I say that without you getting the wrong idea? Anyways. I can see where you're coming from, I think. Not to say that it means asexual, but maybe it just means that you aren't into sex. There's nothing wrong with you. Some people who identify as asexual might feel something similar. Whether this is the "legitimate and scientific" asexual or not (as Chip mentioned) doesn't matter in this case. What matters is that you're comfortable, and you should know that, however you identify, you have a place here.

 

If you experience sexual attraction, you're probably not ace. I'd call you a non-ace person with a low sex drive.

 

Wikipedia states that asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction or a low/absent interest in sexual activity. It links several psychological articles/books to back up this definition, but as they are behind a paywall I cannot check them personally. I don't understand why Chip insists (and has insisted many times) that a "group of small but vocal people" are the ones who say that asexuality includes a lack of interest in sex, because there are a lot of professionals who also use that definition.

At the end of the day, OP isn't interested in sex of any kind - what better word is there for it? Making out that it's something that needs to be fixed and that all people who don't want sex are in some way flawed is a deadly and dangerous path to go down. Remember when not wanting sex with the opposite gender was universally seen as a mental disorder and needed to be "fixed"? I see this in the same vein. If you actually want to have sex but can't (due to low sex drive) that's different, but someone who genuinely has no interest in sex shouldn't be told "you have a biological/environmental reason for this, let's change the way you are".

 

The point of Wikipedia is to inform you and link you to secondary articles. You see those [n] sings (n being an integer) all over the place. If you actually click it, you can see where it comes from. Then it's up to you to decide whether it's credible.

People say "it comes from Wikipedia" for short. They might as well mention the source it actually comes from.

Saying that "no college professor worth his or her salt will allow its use when writing papers or presenting research" is definitely not true, at least not in the world of mathematics. If you know something like, say, mathematical copula, you'd see that Wikipedia links to several papers.

In SystemGlitch's case, Wikipedia links to multiple places, like "Bogaert, Anthony F. (2006). "Toward a conceptual understanding of asexuality". Review of General Psychology. 10 (3): 241–250."

Citing some sources at least is much more credible than stating "And still, the overwhelming majority of clinical professionals recognize that asexuality, as the term has been used for decades, refers to a sexual orientation that is hardwired, in the same way that homo- and heterosexuality are." without any source to back it up.

Just my two cents in this.

 

@Chip, the main issue I have with how you treat asexuality is that you don't give advice on how to work out other issues to see if they're asexual or not - you just outright tell them "no, you aren't asexual". Your points do make sense, there are mental and physical reasons someone can have a low sex drive, but that doesn't mean that every time someone says "I want a relationship but not sex" that they aren't asexual. Which is all I ever see you respond to those posts.

I bring up homosexuality because, when it was being pathologised, it was very newly being researched. Asexuality is the same, it has only recently begun being researched in more detail and there are still many who don't believe it even exists. Researchers have been looking at sexual orientation for years, yes, but this focus has been on heterosexuality and homosexuality for the most part. Why would they have researched asexuality when not having sex until you were married and only having sex to have a child was seen as good and ideal? While general sex in relationships has been accepted for quite some time now, it's only in the past couple of decades that casual sex has become an accepted thing, therefore bringing more focus to the fact that there are people who don't want casual sex, or relationship sex, or married sex, or any sex at all. Not to mention, there are asexual people who DO have sex - not because they want to for themselves, but to make the other person happy. This is what I interpreted the OP to mean when they said "I could have sex with this person but I don't want to have sex with this person", I took it to mean that they aren't sex-repulsed and just are indifferent towards it. Maybe I interpreted it wrong but without clarification from the OP I'm going to go with that interpretation.

People change their label all of the time, as well. I don't know how many stories I've seen of people (on this site, too) who have labeled themself bisexual only to then realise that they aren't bisexual - they are homosexual. Their orientation hasn't changed, they just misunderstood it at first. It's a part of growing to understand ourselves, people are always going to make mistakes interpreting themself and throwing up a roadblock to prevent that will only damage those who really are that way. And as you have also stated yourself before, a label is just that - a label. Why does it matter so much what label someone uses for themself? If it helps them understand themselves better and isn't something wholly ridiculous (like a word for being sexually attracted to water bottles) then it causes no harm. It isn't about telling people "yes that's who you are, stick with it forever" or "no that's not you, you are nothing like that", it's about saying "you could be that, consider these things to help you make sure it's right for you".

 

Chip is what you will call the old-gay vanguard. Literally, its a whole generational gap between how LGBT activism was done back then and how queer activism is being done right now.

The old way of doing things is very...clinical. You needed scientific proof of some kind for your sexuality to be "real". That has changed with the understanding that there is no research being done by queer people, queer people of color, or enough studies to either discredit or proof how real a certain sexuality is. Its important to note that the majority, if not all of the studies, were focused on cis, white, gay men. Studies about women, trans people, asexual people and even bi people have been limited. Specially the inclusion of people of color in said respected studies are lacking.

That activism was necessary back then. Back then, people were deemed to have mental illness, were forced to horrible practices to reverse said illness, and many people were tortured and killed. Thankfully, for the majority of mental health professionals, that is no longer the case. We have Chip's generation to thank for that.

The new way of thinking from younger generations is rooted more on lived experiences than scientific research. Its focused on creating tools to survive the reality of your experience. Its focused on believing people about their experiences without shaming them into conforming to what we think its "normal" or "should be".

Scientific research is still being done and respected, but latest research on sexuality has to do more with behavior and effectiveness of tools to cope with realities rather than whether a sexuality is real or not.

There are pros and cons to both ways of doing things. Its important to learn the limits of both theories.

My personal view is that you should use the tools that work for you. If the label autochorissexual helps you, then go forth an conquer.

Do what helps you. Let everyone else focus on themselves.