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Worth-reading article, "Stanford scholar blazes pathway for academic study of asexuality"


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http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/february/asexuality-studies-scholar-022315.html

Some of the highlights I thought fit a Q&A discussion.

"Cerankowski, who received her PhD from Stanford's Program in Modern Thought and Literature last year, emphasizes social discourse and de-pathologization of sexual orientation.

In her dissertation about the ways asexuality is misunderstood in American culture, Cerankowski traced "the history of the creation of sexual categories" through an extensive study of text and media from pop culture as well as historical works, including collections of sexology texts in the Stanford University Libraries.

Cerankowski says that "society has normalized certain levels of sexual desire while pathologizing others. In a sense, it's the social model that's broken, not asexuals.""

"Cerankowski's own research reveals that people are capable of obtaining just as much contentment from other areas of life, and complete gratification in life doesn't necessarily include sexual gratification.

"We sort of prioritize sexual pleasure and sexual fulfillment in our lives, but we can think about the other ways that people experience intense pleasure, like when listening to music," Cerankowski says."

"A vast spectrum of sexuality

A reasonably imaginative mind might consider that since the prefix "a-" means "not," that asexual must mean "not sexual" and that an asexual person is entirely uninterested in sex and love in any capacity.

But as Cerankowski points out, the pluralization of the term in her book's title is no accident, as it aspires to encompass the intricacies involved in the vast spectrum of asexuality, to be compatible with the "more commonly understood model of fluid and multiple sexualities.""

As Cerankowski has found, studying and thinking about asexuality brings up broader implications of what pleasure means to the human species.

In one scenario, an asexual person might be married, living with a partner and having regular intercourse. This person might be a romantic asexual, meaning someone who experiences strong, intimate and romantic feelings for another person but engages in sexual behavior only for procreative purposes or as a means of experiencing intimacy.

Another scenario might involve an a-romantic asexual, who is completely uninterested in romantic attachment or sexual encounters altogether, but finds satisfaction in other arenas of life. To debunk a common myth about sexuality, this a-romantic, asexual person is not necessarily any less fulfilled than a person with romantic and sexual drive."

"However, much as homosexuality was once consistently pathologized by the public, the asexual community faces similar contention.

In Cerankowski's words, "There's a whole history we're building upon with feminist movements, with queer movements and LGBT politics that have really established a ground on which people can think about sexuality in different ways. Asexuality seems like the next frontier for that reframing of sexuality.""

Nice pic on the article,

14867-asexuality_news.jpg

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Moving to the World Watch forum.

SkyWorld

Asexual Q&A Co-Mod

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