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Hormones and confusion- help!


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Ok, so when I first started to research asexuality on the internet in places beside tumblr, I found links to articles in newspapers like the independent and I read the comments.

Apart from some of the comments making me REALLY peed off, they also made me confused. Because some of them talked about how asexuality and lack of sexual attraction might be related to hormone levels and how aces should go to the doctor and check.

And now I'm confused. How is sexual attraction related to hormones? I can see how the libido and sex drive bits are, because some medications can affect that and both decrease it and increase it. But I don't get how taking hormone tablets (or whatever it is people take) can make someone feel sexual attraction. Can someone please explain?

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"How is sexual attraction related to hormones? I can see how the libido and sex drive bits are, because some medications can affect that and both decrease it and increase it."

Quite frankly, hormones have nothing to do with sexual attraction (atleast not after you were born)

Most allosexuals cannot differentiate between sexual attraction and libido, they just know they see someone they find attractive and get aroused. Thus, when people say they don't experience sexual attraction, most allosexuals think: "your libido must be low, maybe your hormones are off."

In reality, you are correct.

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Actually a few asexuals have gotten their hormones checked and ended up with normal results. So, it's not a hormonal problem. Though, there are some asexuals who may have abnormal hormone levels as well as sexuals with abnormal hormone levels. Though, it seems to be that hormones have little (if any) to do with sexual attraction itself.

Asexuality isn't an illness. Similar to when people thought that homosexuality was an illness when clearly neither of them are illnesses. Why they had considered it an illness because of it can distress the person, though we came to find out that it wasn't their sexual orientation itself that was the illness, but because they were distressed because of society and the social pressure and what is conceived to be "the norm" (in a general sense). That's what I've learned in AP Psych.

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waterdragongirl

I agree with Darkthrone. The writers of these articles are getting libido confused with sexual attraction. Libido can be related to hormones (some uterus having individuals have lower libidos as/after they go through menopause, for example) and sometimes its just how a person is (allosexuals can have low libidos, many people don't want sex all the time or even a lot of the time, and they still identify as allosexual). Being asexual is only about sexual attraction, which means you feel sexual desire towards people, or a person. Libido is just your sex drive, every one has one, just in varying intensity (from no libido to a strong (?) libido). Don't worry, they're just mixing up terms. ^__^

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scarletlatitude

Personally my hormones are too high, so anyone who says that ALL aces have low hormones is not telling the truth.

I know that it is possible for hormonal problems to cause changes in sexual activity. Hormones act like signals in our body, but there are lots of hormones that have nothing to do with sex. (Leptin, for example, tells your brain that you've eaten enough food.) Saying that hormone levels alone are ALWAYS responsible for low sex drive is just wrong.

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Yeah, hormones affect the libido, not attraction. My hormones fluctuate at an increased level, and so there are times when my libido is non-existant, but there are also times when it's in hyperdrive. But none of that affects my lack of attraction.

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