What's Asexuality to you?

[I am me]

I'm doing a research report on asexuality and while it's great that this site sticks to a definition that's not elitist, predefined or rigid I don't think I can do a sociology report about the difficulties of being an asexual in a culture where sexuality trumps all if I can't get a good definition of the base topic. I'm not looking for a cookie cutter generalization, just the legs and the head (Don't worry if you don't get my analogies, few do).

Anyway, I would be EXTREMELY grateful if you could post what asexuality means to you. You can also email me at legealex@hotmail.com.

Thanks if you post, if you don't I'll send my invisible friend Stewart after you, he's a cupcake eating panda and he will destroy you.

[anamia]

Personally I agree with the definition AVEN has provided: asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction. In my own case, this translates to having no libido to speak of and having no interest in either having sex or masturbating.

Re: over sexualized world. Personally, I actually don't mind. Partly because I find women aesthetically attractive and thus don't mind seeing them in tight/revealing clothing, and partly because, quite frankly, I can't be bothered to care. But I know lots of people, both sexual and not, who do care, and I understand their reasoning. I guess I just don't have the personality to go out and care passionately about things. -shrugs-

Hope that helped!

[Pandoren]

Obviously the basic definition is lack of sexual attraction. I'm not entirely sure what other definition you are asking for.

Other people have never aroused me, I look at them at they are just people. Sometimes I think qualities are nice to look at, like "she has fair skin" or "her dark hair goes well with that colour shirt" or "she has nice eyes" but they never give a physical response or any mental sexual ideas or fantasies. I liked the idea of a possible romance when I was younger, but it was very much the idea of close companionship, of trust, of sharing a life with someone, and it wasn't until I was 20 that it occurred to me that any girlfriend of mine would want and expect sex from me. That isn't something I'm interested in or need, and to be honest if someone I loved expected or involved me in that, it would have a negative impact on myself, my emotions toward them and our relationship. It could entirely compromise the emotional aspect for me.

I do have a libido, but again it never occurred to me to share that with someone else, no more than I would care to have someone involved in me taking a dump. It happens regularly and is private. I suppose a mixture of a libido and romantic/aesthetic attraction can fool someone into leaping to the conclusion that they are not asexual, and indeed, that's one of the common issues of confusion raised by newbies when they join.

Since I've found out that I was asexual, sometimes I've gone out and looked at people, just in case people are right in the responses they give you sometimes "maybe you are just depressed!" etc... but no matter how hard I look at them, nothing ever happens, I can't imagine myself in sexual scenarios with them, there's no physical reaction, nothing.

Some people feel the need to try sex in order to truly know they are asexual. I don't. I've never tried it and I don't see why I should, I'm fully aware it isn't something I require and even if I enjoyed the physical sensations (and as a libidoist ace, I know things are working down there) it wouldn't change the fact that the other person does not trigger arousal in me. I'm not antisexual, although I tend to like sexual matters being at an arm's length, but in general if I don't know about it, I don't mind its existance in the world. It's when it becomes a personal matter that I feel threatened and I identify as "repulsed" in that I would never do it myself. Without the ability or want to become aroused beforehand its obvious that attempting sex would be doomed to quite possibly painful failure right from the start. Re. the oversexualisation of society- in a way, yes, I do think it is. We had a sexual revolution but failed to include the right to not have sex. If you don't want it, you get laughed at. If you want to wait until marriage, you get mocked. Pressure is put on us to conform to frequent sexuality from even early teens and success can be measured by sexual prowess. Sometimes I do have small anti-sexual aspect in that I can't fully understand sex as a part of love (I suppose, not experiencing that, it's something that I probably never will fully understand, although I know the theory now), and that sex can be involved in power games, in cheating, in promiscuity, in deception performed just to get sexual gratification, in sexual assault... but I know that it isn't sexual attraction that is the evil, it's the person who goes through with it. The attraction cannot be blamed any more than you can blame the gun that kills a man, or the club that wounds, it is the one who decides to wield it that way that is the one in the wrong.

Various topics that might be helpful for you to look up in order to understand the basic definition better-

~ Romantic attraction

~ Aesthetic attraction

~ Libido or sex drive (libidoist and non-libidoist asexuals)

~ Repulsed/indifferent/sex-positive

Those can help you to understand what asexuality is and isn't and get different views depending on who is doing the answering to the question.

To put it a more "cookie cutter" way, I wrote this for Asexuality Awareness Week, which gives an overview of the above topics:

~ Asexuality is when someone does not experience sexual attraction and surveys have placed it at around 1% of the population. The majority of asexual people have never experienced sexual attraction and continue not to throughout their lives.

~ It has been documented both in humans and animals (most commonly cited is an experiment on rams, in which about 1% of rams showed no interest in mating and tests showed they did not differ in brain structure or chemistry)

~ Asexuals tend to differentiate between different types of attraction:

Sexual attraction- physical attributes in a person that inspire feelings of wanting sexual intimacy.

Romantic attraction- wanting a relationship with someone (the close emotional bond, the special link between two people, the trust, etc)

Aethetic attraction- finding someone beautiful (commonly said as "finding someone like a work of art")

To put it another way, this might be experienced by straight girls who are jealous of female models.

Asexuals lack the first, but can experience the other two. It is possible to find someone sexually attractive without being romantically attracted to them (one night stands etc) and for asexuals, they can desire relationships but feel fulfilled in that relationship through expressing themselves verbally or emotionally and not physically. Some people ask "well, isn't a relationship without sex just a friendship?" To put this a different way, then a friendship + sex = a relationship. What makes sex with a partner different to sex with a friend? An asexual relationship is the difference between a sexual relationship with love, and "friends with benefits".

~ Asexuality doesn't mean "doesn't like sex". Some asexuals have not had sex since they don't feel the need to (and therefore cannot rightly say they don't enjoy it, just that they aren't interested) and others have had sex in order to "test" their feelings about it. Asexuals vary between "repulsed" (not willing to have sex) through "indifferent" (don't mind either way) to "sex-positive" (enjoying sex, can see the emotional benefits of sex within a relationship etc). The main reason for asexuals being sexually active is for the benefit of a sexual partner, but other reasons such as enjoyment or for children also occur.

~ There is currently no known cause of asexuality. Under pressure from societal expectations or from family and friends, many asexuals have sought out hormone tests, therapy, medications and reasons such as depression or childhood abuse and no reasonable explanation has been found. Many of the tests came back normal and while of course some asexuals are depressed or have a history of abuse, the majority of depressed or abused people are not asexual. Asexuality is considered to be a sexual orientation (at least by those to whom it applies...) or to some as the lack of a sexual orientation.

~ Asexuals can have libidos, it is just not directed at anybody. Human sexual biology is a complicated thing and isnt just an on-off switch- by that nature, the complexity must include several layers and asexuals do not necessarily lack them all. To put it another way, asexuals find having a libido like the general feeling of hunger and not craving a particular food. Another analogy is that a straight man on a desert island surrounded only by men will have a libido but will not be sexually attracted to anyone around him. As a result of experiencing a libido, an asexual may partake of solo acts or may, especially if they are in a relationship, relieve these feelings with a partner.

If you want to ask any more specific questions, just say :)

[Sciatrix]

We have a clear-cut operational definition of asexuality. It is "does not experience sexual attraction." That is, asexual people do not experience a desire for sex with a specific person for the sake of having sex with them.

Is there something about that operational definition that confuses you or makes it difficult to do your project? Because I sort of think that a bunch of very personal definitions of the topic are going to make you more confused, not less.

[Paradoxical]

I have never been sexually attracted to somebody. That is why I identify as asexual. So, pretty much the same thing everybody else said. :)

[I am me]

Thank you so much for posting, this has been amazingly helpful and I'm so grateful to all of you who took the time to post. The reason why I wanted a more personal perspective of asexuality is because the site's definition in the FAQ was more an umbrella one, politically correct and all-inclusive but not very manageable. Thanks again for making my life ten times easier and I wish you all the very best. :D

[Pandoren]

So, who is Stuart going to track down first?

[I am me]

There's already been a first. Don't worry about it though, he'll be fine in three months ^_^ .

[pyromaniac]

I used to be heterosexual, but now I identify as Asexual. The reason being, is that I do not want to get into The Ritual and The Game. I tell myself, "if I have to sacrifice my identity and freedom just to have sex, I'd just rather not have sex." By default I'd say I'm heterosexual, but I do not find myself attracted to women, or men, anymore. If I ever have sexual desire, I can simply deal with it myself. But that hardly happens, I have no desire to find a mate, I would rather just be alone. I hate the idea that you are not normal if you do not want to have sex. I am a virgin, the reason I have never had sex is because it's just not that important to me. I tell people this and they say, "oh, you might change your mind in the future," but I honestly do not see that happening. Since the reason for sex is to have children, I do not want children, therefore I do not want sex. It's so political too, the man has to play The Game, be a part of The Ritual, it's just a bunch of pointlessness. I would rather die than have to play The Game or go through with The Ritual.

[outofeden]

I don't have anything useful to add aside from pointing to the "no sexual attraction" definition. With that definition, it's also important to understand what sexual attraction is and that it isn't the same as sexual arousal. Some people don't know about this stuff, I didn't before I came here.

Other ways of describing asexuality include:

Me: "Honestly? I'd rather clean a bathroom floor. Any bathroom floor." I really like that, I might put it in my sig...

See also: that list of things people think are better than sex (ex. um idk, trees, cake, video games, air conditioning). This is evidence of a sentiment that sex is not important to us.

Is it bad that I want to meet Stewart?