Definition discussion.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, nanogretchen4 said:

The difference between asexuality and pansexuality in this scenario is that a pansexual would actually want to have sex with the new arrival on the island, without caring what sex the new arrival was. An actual asexual would not want to have sex with the new arrival, and the new arrival would be equally SOL regardless of their sex.

Ah, Gretchen... I know that, and you know that.

 

My question was more pointed to how does anyone who supports an "attraction, but not desire" definition explain it. Going by that logic, I would indeed consider it about equally as likely that the "asexual" starts enthusiastically boinking the arrivals, but the "pansexual" simply has no desire for sex and remains happily celibate while the arrivals gets blue balls. 

 

And obviously, that makes no sense whatsoever. Because as you correctly said, the difference is the pan innately desires sex, the ace does not.

 

 

Just now, sea-lemon said:

I don't know if I'm missing something major here, but I don't see how that would make bi/pansexuality and asexuality the same thing. Bi/pan would be 'I don't have a gender preference when it comes to sex partners', while asexual would be 'my preference is no-one'?

These two sentences do mean the exact same thing, unless "no-one" implies that the asexual actually does not desire partnered sex. And if that's the case and the exact thing that makes them asexual instead of bi/pan, then that should be the definition, instead of some "attraction" smokescreen.

[Mundane Mesh]

2 minutes ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

These two sentences do mean the exact same thing, unless "no-one" implies that the asexual actually does not desire partnered sex. And if that's the case and the exact thing that makes them asexual instead of bi/pan, then that should be the definition, instead of some "attraction" smokescreen.

Either that, or somehow "no-one" is a gender and thus being attracted to no-one is a gender preference. Which means that pan-sexuals are attracted to "no-one" in addition to all the other genders. Now this is starting to make no sense what so ever.

 

(Okay, I know that this is clearly a strawman, I'm just joking around. I don't think anyone here is arguing for this position.)

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Mundane Mesh said:

Either that, or somehow "no-one" is a gender and thus being attracted to no-one is a gender preference. Which means that pan-sexuals are attracted to "no-one" in addition to all the other genders. Now this is starting to make no sense what so ever.

 

(Okay, I know that this is clearly a strawman, I'm just joking around. I don't think anyone here is arguing for this position.)

Eh, that still makes more sense than a lot of other things on AVEN... at least this strawman has internal logical consistency! 

[Sea Lemon]

13 minutes ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

These two sentences do mean the exact same thing, unless "no-one" implies that the asexual actually does not desire partnered sex. And if that's the case and the exact thing that makes them asexual instead of bi/pan, then that should be the definition, instead of some "attraction" smokescreen.

Ah ok yeah, I get where you're coming from, and that definition does make sense. Although, I don't really see 'attraction' as a smokescreen - I've always found attraction to be fairly easy to get my head round, whereas the semantics of 'desire' seem more complicated to me, so 'attracted regardless of gender' and 'not attracted regardless of gender' seem like fairly comfortable polar opposites.

 

But then, maybe what you're calling 'desire' and what I'm calling 'attraction' are very similar and that's what's confusing me. Who knows. 

I'm not articulating myself very well so that's probably not helping!

[Pramana]

2 hours ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

So, "sexual attraction" == sex partner preference. (I agree that sex partner preference is, indeed, exactly what informs sexual orientation. However, obscuring this simple fact by calling it "sexual attraction" is is stupid and unneccessary at best, misleading and snowflaketastic at worst.)

 

Explain again what, in this model of thinking, is the supposed difference between asexuality and pansexuality. (Two words, that by any even remotely sane and logical standard should be diametrical opposites.) Unless you explain it by something else than "sexual attraction" (which you have established as synonymous with sex partner preference), asexuality and pansexuality are the exact same thing. The thing that would, however, reliably differentiate them is desire for partnered sex - pans have it, aces don't.

 

Your explanation is perfect grounds to convince people that "asexuality" simply does not exist, and is a redundant and made-up special snowflake label. If you're indistinguishable from anyone who is bi/pan, then just say you're bi/pan, goddammit.

 

If people feel invisible and erased, maybe they should check if they didn't simply bring it on themselves by choosing a stupid and illogical label, before they start whining about oppression and discrimination. Own the shit you choose to roll around in.

Sex partner preferences usually include orientation, but usually aren't limited to orientation (that's why I specify attraction is based on preferences of gender and other personal characteristics). A pansexual may have no gender preferences, but still have partner preferences based on other qualities, such as appearance, personality, manner of dress, occupation, etc.

I've heard of the rare case, such as what @Pan. describes, where someone may have desire for partnered sex in the absence of attraction in any form, and thus have no preferences at all. And it seems like there are people in this situation who want to call themselves asexuals and others who want to call themselves sexuals. I can't see any way to decide the issue, so I'd leave it up to people in this situation to decide for themselves (in the spirit of AVEN's principle regarding self-identification). They can both be right, depending on what perspective they wish to adopt. I explain this in detail in an earlier post, where I propose both the attraction model and the desire model as complimentary perspectives for looking at asexuality.

Lastly, I can hardly see how my proposed definition (lack of sexual attraction and/or desire for partnered sex) would convince people that asexuality does not exist; in fact I would say quite the opposite. For example, here's how Anthony Bogaert, one of the leading – if not the leading – asexuality researcher, discusses the topic:

"For example, in Bogaert (2004; see also Bogaert, 2013), asexuality was defined as ‘‘never having felt sexual attraction to others.’’ This definition of asexuality as a lack of sexual attraction or desire for others has partly emerged in recent years in response to theory (e.g., Bogaert, 2006b; Chasin, 2011) and empirical work (e.g., Bogaert, 2004; Brotto et al., 2010) on asexuality, along with earlier theoretical work on sexual orientation (e.g., Storms, 1980). This definition is consistent with how AVEN, the most influential online community and Web site devoted to asexuality, defines asexuality. A consistency with AVEN’s definition does not provide any particular theoretical rationale for the use of this definition, but it is notable that it resonates with a number of influential asexual leaders and educators and how they view the phenomenon."

And:
 

"More research needs to be conducted on the complex relationship between attraction and desire (Bogaert, 2013; Chasin, 2011), but recent evidence and theory suggest the lack of desire in asexuals may be primarily a lack of desire for others—not lack of desire per se; thus again, a lack of sexual attraction/desire for others may be a defining characteristic of asexuality (see Brotto et al. 2010; Chasin, 2011; Van Houdenhove, Gijs, T’Sjoen, & Enzlin, 2014a). In short, when there is evidence of a form of desire in asexual people, it is often a ‘‘solitary’’ desire—a desire that is unconnected to others or a nonpartnered desire. For example, there is evidence that a significant number of asexual people masturbate (e.g., Bogaert, 2013; Brotto et al., 2010), and thus asexual people may not lack all forms of sexual desire."

"Asexuality, What It Is and Why It Matters", Anthony Bogaert, Journal of Sex Research, 2015

 

[Alejandrogynous]

4 hours ago, Pramana said:

My thought is that sexual people who have been able to reach compromise relationships with asexuals are more likely to be sexuals whose own sexuality differs from the majority of the sexual population. My experience has been that most sexuals do not want to date asexuals, and would prefer to have a "normal" sexual relationship with another sexual person.

So I agree that sexuals who are in relationships with asexuals have a unique perspective that we should listen to in order to broaden our knowledge of human sexuality. But, at the same time, they might not always be the best sources of information about the general sexual population, especially when it comes to issues like levels of sexual desire and attraction. I think it's fair to say that sexuals who experience these phenomena with lower than average levels of intensity would have an easier time compromising in relationships with asexuals.

Wait, you think if a sexual person puts their love for another person above their own sexual desire in order to make a relationship work, that person must not be a 'normal' sexual? That's a dangerous way of thinking, Implying that all 'normal sexuals' must put their own desires first or else there's something different about them. Being a sexual person doesn't mean their sexual desires trump everything else in their life, and a sexual person who is willing to compromise is no less sexual than one who's not.

To be clear, I'm not saying there's anything wrong if a sexual person decides they can't/won't compromise, everyone has different feelings and the right to choose, obviously, but to say those that choose to compromise are probably not normal seems problematic to me? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.

[Guest]

56 minutes ago, Pramana said:

"More research needs to be conducted on the complex relationship between attraction and desire (Bogaert, 2013; Chasin, 2011), but recent evidence and theory suggest the lack of desire in asexuals may be primarily a lack of desire for others—not lack of desire per se; thus again, a lack of sexual attraction/desire for others may be a defining characteristic of asexuality (see Brotto et al. 2010; Chasin, 2011; Van Houdenhove, Gijs, T’Sjoen, & Enzlin, 2014a). In short, when there is evidence of a form of desire in asexual people, it is often a ‘‘solitary’’ desire—a desire that is unconnected to others or a nonpartnered desire. For example, there is evidence that a significant number of asexual people masturbate (e.g., Bogaert, 2013; Brotto et al., 2010), and thus asexual people may not lack all forms of sexual desire."

"Asexuality, What It Is and Why It Matters", Anthony Bogaert, Journal of Sex Research, 2015

How can you not see that this completely supports basing the definition on "no desire for partnered sex"? This speaks against your point, and for mine. By citing this bit, you are committing argumentational suicide.

[nanogretchen4]

Right. Bogaert is clearly using desire to mean what AVEN calls libido, and is therefore having to explicitly distinguish between an urge to masturbate, which many asexuals have, and a desire to have partnered sex, which no asexual has.

[Pramana]

1 hour ago, WindyAce said:

Wait, you think if a sexual person puts their love for another person above their own sexual desire in order to make a relationship work, that person must not be a 'normal' sexual? That's a dangerous way of thinking, Implying that all 'normal sexuals' must put their own desires first or else there's something different about them. Being a sexual person doesn't mean their sexual desires trump everything else in their life, and a sexual person who is willing to compromise is no less sexual than one who's not.

To be clear, I'm not saying there's anything wrong if a sexual person decides they can't/won't compromise, everyone has different feelings and the right to choose, obviously, but to say those that choose to compromise are probably not normal seems problematic to me? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.

I'm merely saying that it's probably harder for a person with a really high sex drive to compromise regarding sex than it is for a person with a lower sex drive, and so the latter group may be overrepresented in sexual/asexual relationships. It's normal for some people to have high sex drives, and it's normal for some people to have low sex drives. I'm not saying that anyone is abnormal.

My point is simply that sexuals who are in relationships with asexuals do not amount to a random sampling of the sexual population. I think it's very reasonable to suggest that we can't assume an exact match between the experiences of sexuals in relationships with asexuals and the experiences of the broader sexual population.

[Arctangent]

6 hours ago, Pramana said:

I agree that the support of sexual allies is important, and I would never want to be seen as discounting the value of that.

My thought is that sexual people who have been able to reach compromise relationships with asexuals are more likely to be sexuals whose own sexuality differs from the majority of the sexual population. My experience has been that most sexuals do not want to date asexuals, and would prefer to have a "normal" sexual relationship with another sexual person.

So I agree that sexuals who are in relationships with asexuals have a unique perspective that we should listen to in order to broaden our knowledge of human sexuality. But, at the same time, they might not always be the best sources of information about the general sexual population, especially when it comes to issues like levels of sexual desire and attraction. I think it's fair to say that sexuals who experience these phenomena with lower than average levels of intensity would have an easier time compromising in relationships with asexuals.

In my experience, having been on AVEN for a while and read many threads in SPFA, your impression of sexual allies here is not wholly accurate. It's true that some sexuals here are on the low end of sexual and atypical in some ways. However, many sexual allies here are more "average sexuals" who ended up in committed relationships or marriages with people who didn't know they were asexual. Many asexuals in mixed relationships try to go along with the expectations of a normal sexual relationship at first and only realize they're asexual some months or years down the line. In other cases, the asexual has no idea that their lack of desire for sex is unusual, and the sexual person is the one who figures out that something is different about their partner. Sexuals in these situations did not knowingly choose to be in relationships with asexuals and would prefer a normal sexual relationship in theory, but they often are still motivated to try to make the relationship work due to their emotional investment with that particular person.

 

Many sexual allies in this kind of situation have also taken issue with the attraction-based definition and supported desire-based definitions in the past. So I don't necessarily think it's something that only atypical or weakly sexual people like me (and perhaps @Pan. could be thought of this way as well) support. Unfortunately, many of these sexual allies who used to be more outspoken about this issue are no longer active on AVEN. I suspect this is in part due to the fact that the culture of AVEN is not always very friendly to sexuals in general.

[Pramana]

9 minutes ago, Law of Circles said:

In my experience, having been on AVEN for a while and read many threads in SPFA, your impression of sexual allies here is not wholly accurate. It's true that some sexuals here are on the low end of sexual and atypical in some ways. However, many sexual allies here are more "average sexuals" who ended up in committed relationships or marriages with people who didn't know they were asexual.

My main point is that it wouldn't be prudent to assume that experiences of sexuals on AVEN correlate exactly with the experiences of the broader sexual population. So, for example, there's some reason to think that sexuals with lower sex drives may be overrepresented. But not that all sexuals in compromise relationships have lower sex drives.

[Pramana]

1 hour ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

How can you not see that this completely supports basing the definition on "no desire for partnered sex"? This speaks against your point, and for mine. By citing this bit, you are committing argumentational suicide.

Bogaert writes, with respect to an earlier paper, that "asexuality was defined as ‘‘never having felt sexual attraction to others" and then he writes that "a lack of sexual attraction/desire for others may be a defining characteristic of asexuality".

How do you get from that to a "desire only" definition?

It's clear that Bogaert is favouring either an attraction-based or an attraction/desire-based definition.

[Alejandrogynous]

18 minutes ago, Pramana said:

My main point is that it wouldn't be prudent to assume that experiences of sexuals on AVEN correlate exactly with the experiences of the broader sexual population. So, for example, there's some reason to think that sexuals with lower sex drives may be overrepresented. But not that all sexuals in compromise relationships have lower sex drives.

Well, yes, insofar as it generally isn't prudent to take a small sample of any group and say it speaks one hundred percent accurately for the larger whole. Obviously, the bigger the test group, the more accurate it will be.

It still seems wrong to me to assume that the majority of sexual allies on AVEN aren't the norm just because they happen to be here, but @Law of Circles said it better already so I'll leave it at that.

[Guest]

Read it again. Bogaert writes, plain as day, that asexuals lack a desire for sex with others. The mentions of "attraction" in that quoted bit add absolutely nothing to the text, could be erased without losing any kind of meaning, and frankly seem more like a relic from an earlier version.

 

Asexuals don't have a desire for partnered sex. I frankly don't see how people can find that so hard to understand. The best explanation I have is that they are wearing industrial-strength ideological blinders, and/or have been brainwashed.

 

Attraction simply does not inform orientation. The term is blatantly not needed in discussing them; and asexuality is not the only orientation in which trying to explain things by "attraction" leads to ridiculous results. (Reminding people again of that semi-recent study that women can't be heterosexual, or at least are super, super rare - there are probably more ace women than straight women. Being straight is just about a purely male phenomenon - women are either lesbian, bi, or ace.

 

Oh, and zoophilia = absolutely mainstream-normal. More people are into animals than into the same sex. Being gay is stranger than fucking horses!

 

That's the kind of utter bullcrap "attraction"-based models produce.)

[Pramana]

6 minutes ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

Read it again. Bogaert writes, plain as day, that asexuals lack a desire for sex with others. The mentions of "attraction" in that quoted bit add absolutely nothing to the text, could be erased without losing any kind of meaning, and frankly seem more like a relic from an earlier version.

 

Asexuals don't have a desire for partnered sex. I frankly don't see how people can find that so hard to understand. The best explanation I have is that they are wearing industrial-strength ideological blinders, and/or have been brainwashed.

 

Attraction simply does not inform orientation. The term is blatantly not needed in discussing them; and asexuality is not the only orientation in which trying to explain things by "attraction" leads to ridiculous results. (Reminding people again of that semi-recent study that women can't be heterosexual, or at least are super, super rare - there are probably more ace women than straight women. Being straight is just about a purely male phenomenon - women are either lesbian, bi, or ace.

 

Oh, and zoophilia = absolutely mainstream-normal. More people are into animals than into the opposite sex

 

That's the kind of utter bullcrap "attraction"-based models produce.)

Here's another quote from the same paper:

"In sum, in this article (see also Bogaert, 2006b, 2012b) precedence is given to subjective sexual attraction (over physiological attraction=arousal) in defining sexual orientation; and asexuality can be understood within a sexual orientation framework. Thus, if an individual does not subjectively experience sexual attraction—his or her mind is not registering (or attuned to) sexual attraction to others—regardless of his or her physiological experiences, he or she can be designated as having an ‘‘asexual’’ orientation."

"Asexuality, What It Is and Why It Matters", Anthony Bogaert, Journal of Sex Research, 2015

[Guest]

Which is where Bogaert becomes a lot less clear, muddying the waters with all this "attraction" vagueness again, and leaves us at "the fuck does this actually mean"?

 

Seriously, that term just needs to disappear from the discourse.

[Xenobot]

10 hours ago, Pramana said:

As I've argued before, it seems to me that sexual attraction can be understood in a straightforward way as "preferences (gender or otherwise) for who one has sex with". In my view, asexual education requires that we make an effort to understand human sexuality in all its complexity, rather than a simplified version of it because people got too confused talking about different expressions of sexual attraction.

Besides that, I don't think it's an ethically defensible approach to ignore the concerns of a minority of the community because they're a minority. That seems like the last thing an LGBT+ group such as the asexuality community should be doing.

I'm not really sure what to say about people who desire partnered sex but who don't experience sexual attraction. If seems to me we just have to give them the option to identify as either asexual or sexual, and therefore we need both the desire and attraction models in order to allow them to do that.

FYI, the bolded description would be inclusive to the vast, vast majority of pansexuals. The only people who would not be included are totally indiscriminate hypersexual pansexuals which are rare, and considered to be a harmful stereotype of pansexuality. They frequently take very strong issue with people who assume that their absence of gender preferences extends to an absence of any preferences when it comes to sexual partners. Pansexual people were on my radar back when I assumed I could eventually "fix my issue" with not wanting or enjoying sex, because I knew for a fact that they wouldn't discount me purely on the basis of being transgender (note: plenty of bi, hetero, and homosexual people are open to being with transgender people, but pansexuals are explicitly stating that they're open to it). My transgenderism, for them, is a complete nonissue, but that doesn't mean I'm their type/that they would be attracted to me. So, the gender part doesn't apply to them, but the "otherwise" certainly does... 

 

Edit: I see you already came to that conclusion. I saw the beginnings of the pansexuality discussion this morning and then I had to go to work. I'm writing this on my lunch break so I haven't been able to get properly caught up.

[Pramana]

10 minutes ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

Which is where Bogaert becomes a lot less clear, muddying the waters with all this "attraction" vagueness again, and leaves us at "the fuck does this actually mean"?

 

Seriously, that term just needs to disappear from the discourse.

Strange, then that so many authors keep using it. Here's a quote from a a different group of asexuality researchers:

"The results from our two studies supported the definition, which characterized asexuality as a lack of sexual attraction, as proposed by Bogaert (2004, 2006). The definition of asexuality should not depend upon (absence of) sexual activity given that some asexuals continued to engage in sexual intercourse and many masturbated. The position held by AVEN–that each individual experiences and expresses sexual desire, arousal, and behavior somewhat differently– was borne out in the current studies where there was a great deal of variability in sexual response and behaviour."

"Asexuality: A Mixed-Methods Approach", Lori A. Brotto, Gail Knudson, Jess Inskip, Katherine Rhodes, Yvonne Erskine, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2010

With respect, arguments of the form "that's too complicated for me to understand" are weak arguments.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Pramana said:

Strange, then that so many authors keep using it.

I think it's due to America being so steeped in a tradition of behavioristic psychology. (Frankly, I think behaviorism is bullshit.)

 

 

6 minutes ago, Pramana said:

With respect, arguments of the form "that's too complicated for me to understand" are weak arguments.

Too complicated for ca. 80% of AVENites to understand, not just for me.

 

So, yeah, that minority of 20% needs to be forced to stop being a hindrance to education. If we allow them to do so, that is oppressive elitism of the worst kind.

[Xenobot]

17 minutes ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

I think it's due to America being so steeped in a tradition of behavioristic psychology. (Frankly, I think behaviorism is bullshit.)

 

 

Too complicated for ca. 80% of AVENites to understand, not just for me.

 

So, yeah, that minority of 20% needs to be forced to stop being a hindrance to education. If we allow them to do so, that is oppressive elitism of the worst kind.

If it's as complicated as you say, then why is it that only 7.62% of respondents on AVEN prefer an exclusively desire-based definition? Nearly half of respondents prefer the exclusively sexual attraction-based definition, and the rest (excluding the approx 1% who chose "other") prefer a two part definition including both sexual attraction and sexual desire?

 

If it starts out confusing, it clearly doesn't remain so, otherwise far more people would reject any inclusion of sexual attraction in the ideal definition of asexuality. I have seen the poll on the German AVEN forum, and I know there it went differently with more people prefering a desire-based definition, but I think that can possibly be explained by the nuances of those terms being a bit different in German, or perhaps some kind of cultural difference when it comes to conceptions of sexual desire and sexual attraction, but the english AVEN and many foreign AVEN sites use the sexual attraction or its closest equivalent in their language without any major difficulties.

 

The 7-8% here can say all they want to, but at the end of the day, most people just don't oppose the concept of sexual attraction like they do.

[Lucinda]

The attraction-based definition of asexuality came from AVEN. Boegart and Brotto did not come up with it independently.

 

AVEN considered different definitions for asexuality in the beginning. Since the founder had been influenced and inspired by some women in the gay movement, he decided to frame asexuality as a separate and distinct sexual orientation so as to take advantage of the momentum gained by the LGB. In order to present it as a sexual orientation, it was necessary to truncate the meaning of sexual orientation and focus on the "sexual attraction" part.

 

Here's something you might want to consider:

 

Quote

asexual in Medicine

asexual a·sex·u·al (ā-sěk'shōō-əl)
adj.

Having no evident sex or sex organs; sexless.

Relating to, produced by, or involving reproduction that occurs without the union of male and female gametes, as in binary fission or budding.

Lacking interest in or desire for sex.

　

a·sex'u·al'i·ty (-āl'ĭ-tē) n.
a·sex'u·al·ly adv.

 

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

 

The lacking interest in or desire for sex definition came before AVEN. From a medical dictionary. Was Boegart or Brotto aware of this?

 

Lucinda

 

[Guest]

@Xenobot

 

That 80% is from this very site here, English/International AVEN, not AVEN.de. Click me

 

And I frankly have no clue why most people here continue to support a definition the overwhelming majority thinks is unclear. It is baffling, and frustrates me to no end. I guess most people simply don't give a shit about the E in AVEN, and a good number are just too conservative/lazy to try and work for improvement, even if the status quo is horribly insufficient.

 

Maybe people as a whole are just, you know, dumb.

[Mundane Mesh]

Vaguely relevant to this thread:

Spoiler

 

 

[Pramana]

12 minutes ago, Lucinda said:

The attraction-based definition of asexuality came from AVEN. Boegart and Brotto did not come up with it independently.

 

AVEN considered different definitions for asexuality in the beginning. Since the founder had been influenced and inspired by some women in the gay movement, he decided to frame asexuality as a separate and distinct sexual orientation so as to take advantage of the momentum gained by the LGB. In order to present it as a sexual orientation, it was necessary to truncate the meaning of sexual orientation and focus on the "sexual attraction" part.

 

Here's something you might want to consider:

 

 

 

The lacking interest in or desire for sex definition came before AVEN. From a medical dictionary. Was Boegart or Brotto aware of this?

 

Lucinda

 

The term "asexual" has been used for a long time in science to refer to organisms that reproduce asexually and also to refer to things that are sexless or otherwise lack sexual qualities. These dictionary definitions are all of that type. I doubt there's any link between the appearance of that term in the dictionary you reference and the start of its use in referring to asexuality as an orientation.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Pramana said:

My main point is that it wouldn't be prudent to assume that experiences of sexuals on AVEN correlate exactly with the experiences of the broader sexual population. So, for example, there's some reason to think that sexuals with lower sex drives may be overrepresented. But not that all sexuals in compromise relationships have lower sex drives.

I don't know how much you know about Skullery (one of the most vocal sexuals we have ever had on AVEN, and she was here for many years until she gave up on us mainly because of issues surrounding the values on AVEN) but she's one of the most hypsersexual people I know, and she's always been very open about that. She was extremely sexually experienced, having had many sexual partners of all sorts of different sexual experience levels (casual sex as well as relationship sex) so was very good at explaining the differences between sexual pleasure levels, sexual desire levels, how experience effects pleasure etc etc. Having an asexual partner was often hell for her on a sexual level (it is for many sexuals regardless of sex drive levels) but she loved her partner very much so chose to stay for years despite the sexual issues. That's one of the reasons Skullery was so vocal on this issue, because she could pinpoint very easily where asexuals and sexuals differed: in their desire to connect sexually with others. There are other high libido/high sex drive sexuals here, some who have been married to asexuals for years and come to AVEN trying to understand more about their partners and find advice from other sexual people in the same situation, they're generally not as vocal outside SPFA though.  We also have sexuals who just couldn't handle being with an asexual so left but remained on AVEN for the convo, again they're often not as vocal as say, Skullery or Tele. So the sexuals on AVEN are definitely quite typical of the sexual population in that we have a wide range of levels of sex drive: from sexuals who might only prefer to have sex once a month or so right up to those who'd prefer to be having it daily in the perfect world, or at least a few times a week. Also the guy I quoted before identifies as "very sexual" in his profile, if that helps. Going by libido, I would also count as "highly sexual" in that I generally have to masturbate at least once (sometimes up to like 3 times) a day due to having high arousal levels,  and yes could replace that with certain sexual acts if my partner wasn't on the other side of the world, if I wanted to. But I'm also the opposite of highly sexual in that I don't care if I never actually have partnered sex again, so yeah, I'm not a good example lol. But Skullery was definitely one of the most highly sexually driven people I've met and she was always very open about that here which made her a very valuable recourse to AVEN. It still sucks badly for AVEN that she's gone Y_Y.  

 

I have to point out quickly regarding the definition thing, I did fair bit of research into the history of the definition a while back, and David Jay had independently come up with the "official defintion" initially. People took that on after AVEN became big and just use it because the person who made AVEN uses it. David Jay these days states that "anyone who wants to be asexual is asexual"  (ahem) BUT in the documentary '(A)sexual', he states repeatedly "I'm asexual, I don't want sex" "I just don't want sex", "I've never wanted sex" and even at one point "I feel attraction, I just don't want sex" which leads me to believe that initially he was using the term sexual attraction to mean "desire for partnered sex with others" in the same way Boegart does. It seems to me that he assumed people would understand that lack of sexual attraction would mean "don't want sex with others" and it just didn't quite work out that way, then he kind of gave up on defining it in favour of inclusiveness. It may just be an American thing, I don't know, but Boegart does seem to use that term meaning "desire for partnered sex" (not that I actually adhere to a lot of what he says, but yeah).

[Lucinda]

16 minutes ago, Pramana said:

The term "asexual" has been used for a long time in science to refer to organisms that reproduce asexually and also to refer to things that are sexless or otherwise lack sexual qualities. These dictionary definitions are all of that type. I doubt there's any link between the appearance of that term in the dictionary you reference and the start of its use in referring to asexuality as an orientation.

Do you think that organisms that reproduce asexually do so because they lack an interest in or desire for sex?

 

Would the terms "interest" and "desire" be qualities more likely found in people regarding various subject matters?

 

And AVEN did consider an interest-based definition at one point, but thought it might be too confusing as there are people who do take an academic or medical interest in sex.

 

So many people were confused by what "sexual attraction" really meant, that we took a look at what people were actually saying when they entered the Welcome Lounge.  A common theme seemed to be "no interest", "no desire", "no want", and "no need" for sex.  Then the convos started drilling in on the no desire aspect of partnered sex which hopefully made asexuality easier to understand.  However, we still have new members arrive that claim they are confused while others adamantly claim that they are glad they found a group of people like themselves who can go the rest of their lives without sex.

 

Lucinda

[Pramana]

18 minutes ago, Lucinda said:

Do you think that organisms that reproduce asexually do so because they lack an interest in or desire for sex?

 

Would the terms "interest" and "desire" be qualities more likely found in people regarding various subject matters?

 

And AVEN did consider an interest-based definition at one point, but thought it might be too confusing as there are people who do take an academic or medical interest in sex.

 

So many people were confused by what "sexual attraction" really meant, that we took a look at what people were actually saying when they entered the Welcome Lounge.  A common theme seemed to be "no interest", "no desire", "no want", and "no need" for sex.  Then the convos started drilling in on the no desire aspect of partnered sex which hopefully made asexuality easier to understand.  However, we still have new members arrive that claim they are confused while others adamantly claim that they are glad they found a group of people like themselves who can go the rest of their lives without sex.

 

Lucinda

No, my point is just that there's a history of people making up new uses of the term "asexual" to mean different things, derivative of its original meaning with respect to asexual reproduction. I don't think the medical definition is in any way related to what we mean by asexuality. There's a good chance it is referring to a desire disorder, or something to that effect.

Lack of sexual desire and lack of sexual attraction are both relevant to understanding asexuality, and so both should be part of the definition. We should work on ways to explain sexual attraction in a straightforward fashion (sexual partner preferences based on gender or other personal characteristics) in the interests of asexuality eduction. It's not educational to ignore something simply because it is too complicated.
 

[Pramana]

54 minutes ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

@Xenobot

 

That 80% is from this very site here, English/International AVEN, not AVEN.de. Click me

 

And I frankly have no clue why most people here continue to support a definition the overwhelming majority thinks is unclear. It is baffling, and frustrates me to no end. I guess most people simply don't give a shit about the E in AVEN, and a good number are just too conservative/lazy to try and work for improvement, even if the status quo is horribly insufficient.

 

Maybe people as a whole are just, you know, dumb.

The more I think about this, the more I suspect that the reason why "sexual attraction" seems to be a largely clear concept for members of the general public is that they don't talk about it. Imagine if we tried to explain what "art" is through discussions on AVEN forums. Pretty soon, it'd be hopelessly unclear. But that doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't use the concept. It would, in fact, be ridiculous not to.

Education requires putting in some effort to understand complex phenomena like human sexuality. It's not about following whatever is simplest/easiest, while ignoring published research on the topic.

[Guest]

Oh that's nonsense. It doesn't explain at all how people show up here again and again asking what "sexual attraction" even is. Look at the poll again - the concept of "sexual attraction" doesn't even get thought about outside of AVEN all that much. It's not a real-life relevant thing, it's mindwankery by folks with nothing better to do.

 

 

Could rant longer. Won't. It's not worth anyone's time anymore. I can just advise everyone to take anything said on AVEN about sexuality, asexuality, and sexual orientations with not just a grain, but a two-pound kitchen pack of salt, because the information shared here has become... meh, at the best of times... and nobody has the combination of being both able and willing to improve the standards of quality.

 

So yeah, feel free to keep reinforcing each other in a circle-jerk that you're all totally asexual, and it's all totally real and totally legit, and AVEN is a totally healthy community with a totally smart setup. I wash my hands of it, and I think many, many of you folks are... simply pretty damn weird, and rather clueless. And if that's coming from a person who never felt desire to have partnered sex, myself... just imagine what regular folks think of you.

 

Or no, don't. Many of you would just use that thought as an excuse to rant about how horribly oppressed and discriminated you are by the evil sexual society, and that's the very last idea you guys need any more of.

 

[PLAYER 1 left the thread]

[Xenobot]

The only truly dumb thing I see here (regardless of what Mysticus might imply) is not the people involved in the community or this debate, but that everyone (or virtually everyone) within this current debate is PRO-desire based definition yet we can't work together on that point. The only thing that separates us, or keeps us from working together on this issue is that a minority of members on this site want to exclude/replace the sexual attraction based definition altogether instead of adding on to it.

 

Fine, you're entitled to your opinion there, but surely even you guys can see that at least starting with a compromise to bring awareness to your opinion has a far better chance of working than trying to completely overthrow the majority opinion with one fell swoop. The AVEN BoD would be far more likely to take the desire-based definition into consideration if we all argued for it together instead of endlessly fighting amongst ourselves over the exclusion/inclusion of the sexual attraction-based definition. That is a separate issue. The goal should be the inclusion of a desire-based definition. If the sexual attraction-based definition detractors want to keep pushing for excluding that part of the definition if and after we succeed at the inclusion of the desire-based definition, then that's their prerogative.