SO when someone says that they are asexual, people ask them how they can be sure if they haven’t ever had sex.
But when an asexual does have sex and tells someone, they tell them that they can’t be a real asexual.
Logic at its best, people.
It’s similar to “When you’re attracted to someone you’ll know.”
“I’ve never been attracted to anyone.”
“Oh, you have! You just didn’t know it!”
Yay logic pretzels!
(Source: sherriffgrahamcrackers, via greenchestnuts)
So, when a person wears a black ring on their right middle finger, it means that they are asexual. I have a black band, but it has a strip of white down the middle and it was über cheap and I broke it and then I lost it. But, here are three rings I’d like to purchase. The first is a plain black band, and that’s pretty much exactly what I wanted always and what I searched for frantically all summer before finally settling for my cheap ass black band. The second is just a prettier version. The third has the purple triangle on it, another symbol of asexuality.
I wear the ring on the left on a regular basis. But man, those other two are gorgeous. Would love to get my hands on them.
These are making me want to get a new pretty ring! That one in the middle is amazing.
Asexual people are regularly told we “should” be indifferent enough to “just try it.” (Meaning sex, of course. Because if we ID as asexual, we’re usually assumed to be virgins.)
Asexual people who feel they are too repulsed to “just try it” are assigned a “fear of sex” and dismissed outright by people who don’t think trying sex is a big deal.
Asexual people who HAVE “just tried it” and didn’t like it (or, as is sometimes the case, found it horrible) are dismissed outright by people who think we did it wrong, did it with the wrong person/wrong gender, or ruined the experience for ourselves by expecting to hate it.
Basically, this suggests that the only authentic way of experiencing sex is to engage in it without prejudice, enjoy it, and stop calling oneself asexual (ignoring, of course, that some asexual people can enjoy sex and still feel that their orientation is asexual).
But let’s look at indifferent and repulsion reactions. Here is something to keep in mind before you slap an asexual person who reacts this way with judgment on why their failure to love sex is pathological.
Imagine, if you will, that you are a straight person, but everyone has told you your whole life that you “should” like the same gender in your bed. You imagined as a child that you would fulfill this expectation by developing those feelings, but no, you feel straight even after you’re finished becoming an adult. So you feel something is wrong with you, and that you “should” desire gay sex, and that message (plus a drive to connect with others emotionally or romantically) leads you to seeking out a consummate homosexual relationship.
You do it. You don’t like it. You either felt actively sickened by the experience or you at least didn’t enjoy it the way everyone says you should have. Either the experience itself or the experience of not connecting in this supposedly fundamental way leaves you out in the cold, wondering what’s wrong with you, why this doesn’t work for you, why it wasn’t the transformative experience everyone else talks up, why you can’t feel what everyone else feels. That’s pretty scary, isn’t it? To have everyone look down their nose at you when you say the sex you had was either something you could take or leave or something you would really prefer to leave, thank you?
I think people who say we should be open to pursuing sex no matter how we THINK we’ll feel about it don’t understand why “just trying sex” IS too tall an order for some of us. There are plenty of people out there who don’t have to be sexually attracted to their partners in order to have sex with them—and some asexual people are in that camp—but it’s not normally considered unreasonable to be unable to stomach sex with a person who’s not attractive to you.
Unless you’re asexual.
Then you’re expected to acknowledge that your feelings are wrong or weird, and you’re led to believe that jump-starting your active sexual attraction experiences is possible through pushing yourself into sex. But since last time I checked most heterosexual people don’t believe they can be turned gay by having gay sex they aren’t interested in, I’m pretty sure we’d all be on the same page if we could agree that sexual attraction is not like vampirism—some kind of desire that’s absent completely until it’s bestowed upon you by the person who bites you. Most folks agree that a person can tell who they are attracted to, and that they are well within their rights pursuing only those partners.
Again, unless they’re asexual.
It’s a double standard for asexuals. We aren’t trusted to be the authority on our feelings, and we’re told that this is so because Sex Is Good so there must be some form of it we WILL desire or enjoy. But asexuality—the state of not being sexually attracted to anyone—isn’t a condition that limits our capacity to understand ourselves and authentically choose what intimate experiences we want to have.
So before you tell an asexual person that they “should” be indifferent enough to give sex a try, or that they “should” never have a revulsion response to having sex … think about how you’d feel if you were told the same thing about how you’re supposed to feel about having sex with partners you’re not attracted to.
And think about how frustrating, demeaning, isolating, and scary it would be to live in a world where that message is the master narrative by which you’re expected to define your most cherished relationships.
Think about that. And then don’t say it.
Asexual:
Has no sex drive. Does not experience sexual attraction to any gender.Grey-Asexual (or Grey-A): In the “grey area” between sexual and asexual. May experience sexual attraction rarely or weakly.
Demisexual: A type of Grey-A; a demisexual experiences sexual attraction only towards people they already have a strong emotional/romantic bond with.
Trans*
sexual:You’re biologically male or female but mentally your the opposite gender.Does not identify as the gender they were assigned at birth.Bisexual: Attracted to
both genders. at least 2 genders.Pansexual: Attracted to all genders/gender isn’t a factor in whether or not you’re attracted to someone (definition varies between individuals).
Omnisexual: same thing as pansexual.
Metrosexual:
You have the characteristics of a stereotypical gay man. Does not belong on this list.Homosexual: Attracted to the same gender.
Heterosexual: Attracted to
the oppositepeople of a different gender.Fantasysexual: A person attracted to fictional characters or, simply, ME
There, I fixed it.
If I screwed up please let me know.
An excellent post on the assumption of romance.
?
For clarification: while you can say “my favorite part of cake is the frosting” saying “my favorite part of cake is the cake” is confusing.
The crumb?
I think the only sex scene with any detail I could write would be one in which the two characters involved are asexual-spectrum and have decided to sexually experiment with each other, but they keep bursting into giggles because sexual activities are hilarious.
I’d read that!
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone put up a list of the choices you have for where to see (A)sexual (at least not lately), so here you go:
On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/A-Sexual/dp/B008F5IM0M
On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/a-sexual/id533681543
On Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=KgRxxls7JxI&feature=mv_sr
On Vudu: http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!content/351279/Asexual
On XBox Live: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Movie/A-sexual/75d6f403-a228-45f2-a53a-33db3807a9ec
On PSN: http://us.playstation.com/games-and-media/movies/a-sexual-2012.html
We tend to complain about how there aren’t any positive media portrayals of asexuals around. Well, here’s one. It’s only a couple of bucks in most places, and that money is going to go to the people who took a chance and decided that they wanted to tell our story. Thank them with your dollars.
Anyone know if you can get this in the UK?
So in a previous post I mentioned that I accidentally outed myself to a couple of people who are, incidentally, in my Uni class. Yesterday one of those people said they were going to “convert” me, and make me “like Sandy from Grease” (read: all skin tight catsuit) and then there were gestures that implied being sexually alluring.
It’s going to be a long 3 years.
I accidentally outed myself as asexual yesterday. I did not receive the best reaction I could have. Various things that were said (in no particular order):
I’m now wondering if it’d be a good idea to email this person and say ‘outing people isn’t cool, jsyk’. She seems like she wouldn’t think anything of gossiping about it to people (I mean while I was trying to explain to her she called over someone else in a ‘listen to what she’s saying!’ way). I don’t particularly like the idea of people ambushing me to quizz me about my orientations, and I don’t fancy the idea of having to do damage control if she goes around spreading inaccurate information. First impressions are so important with stuff like this.
My sign language dictionary, published in 1992, distinguishes between romantic and sexual attraction.
SCREAMING.
When I was younger a of people were keen to emphasise that sex does not equal love. Now I’m seen as adult I am told that you cannot have (romantic) love without sex.
I often forget that sex is a thing. Like.. It exists.
I don’t typically remember that most people think about sex or have sex.
I do this.
Yeah me too.
I do that all the time. Then when I do remember it throws me for a second, like when you expect there to be another step when there isn’t one.
So I have a question for anybody who is aromantic and asexual. Do you see your ace/aro-ness as a form of sexuality, or lack thereof? I know it might defer from person to person, but just reply to this post if you wouldn’t mind, because it’s something I’ve wondered about.
I consider my ace/aro nature to be a form of sexuality, not a lack of sexuality. For some reason, saying, “I don’t have a sexuality,” feels wrong, like a lie, because I do have one … it’s just composed of not being sexually attracted to people, and not being romantically attracted to people.
IDK.
I think it’s semantics, kind of like how I had an argument with someone for 40 minutes over whether gender was innate or not, and it was only that our own personal definitions of gender was different that we argued. They thought gender referred to the label you gave the feeling, and I thought gender referred to the feeling … so. Lol.
I consider my aromantic asexuality to be a sexuality too—well, sort of. Because it’s not a blank … most people view a blank as something that’s waiting to be filled. As a thing that’s not there YET. I do have a perspective on sexual orientation, and it is that people are not attractive to me, sexually or romantically. That’s a position, even though it’s the null set.
I’m fond of saying I have “a sexual orientation of no,” not “no sexual orientation.”
I have heard some people describe their aromantic asexuality as just an aspect of life they don’t participate in, not as an identity in itself, but while I understand this too, I do consider it part of my identity. It’s important when living in a world where most people do have a sexual orientation that compels them to engage in partnerships I don’t pursue or understand (for me). And while atheism isn’t a religion, it is a perspective on spiritual/religious belief in a world where most people have a religion that involves active belief and usually practices. While bald isn’t a hair color, it is a name for what’s on your head if hair isn’t there.
Asexuality’s like that for me. It isn’t sexual. But it’s a perspective on sexuality. A name for how I see that aspect of life. It does take up space in my head and affect how I interact with other people. So I prefer to see it as a thing, not a non-thing.
^ What swankivy said describes how I experience myself as aromantic & asexual also.
(Also, unrelated: Pretty sure you didn’t mean to say this, Swankivy, but atheism/religion is a false dichotomy because there are religions that don’t involve theism or otherwise worship of deities. I think it’s more accurate to characterize atheism as a perspective on belief in god(s) rather than a perspective on religion.)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR THAT UNRELATED NOTE.
But also pretty much what everyone else said, it’s not a “blank” or a “lack of” per se. I like the way swankivy said it, “a sexual orientation of no”.
Seconding Swankivy’s ‘it’s an orientation of no’. The way I see it, most sexual/romantic orientations say who you aren’t attracted to as much as who you are e.g. Heterosexual - attracted to a different gender (but not your own gender), but no one ever feels the need to say the bit in brackets.
