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Antisex Philosophies


Pramana

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I was originally going to title this post “antisexual philosophy”, but in the asexual community “sexual” is commonly used to refer to sexual people, and I do not wish to suggest philosophy that is against sexual people. Furthermore, from reading old threads I’ve discovered there’s a history of antisexualism on AVEN expressed as disparaging attitudes towards sexual people, often combined with belief in asexual elitism. My impression is that for the most part these opinions have been rejected, and I do not wish to try to revive them.

 

Hence, I’ve chosen to use the term “antisex” to refer to views which are critical of aspects of human sexuality, and I’ve chosen to write “philosophies” as plural to reflect the diversity of views which fit under this criteria. These views range in scope from personal ideologies regarding one’s participation in sexual activities to criticisms of the role of sex in society.

I found discussion in this thread concerning ideological reasons for identifying with the asexual community to be especially relevant:

I’m sceptical about prospects for reclaiming the term “antisexual” because of the baggage attached to it, so as explained above I prefer to say “antisex”. Beyond that, I find it illuminating to consider how ideology may influence asexual identity. Many people would say that if you avoid sex for ideological reasons (whether the ideology in question is religious or nonreligious), then you're celibate rather than asexual. This distinction relies on the belief that sexual attraction and desire are primarily if not entirely biologically set features of one’s personality. Celibate people retain whatever levels of sexual attraction and desire they experienced before making an ideologically motivated decision to avoid sexual activity. They are sexually inactive by choice despite being sexually attracted to people and desiring partnered sex.

I would suggest, however, that this picture is only accurate to describe some people who are sexually inactive for ideological reasons. It works best for the case of people who decide to be celibate as part of a decision to join a nunnery or monastery. On the other hand, consider the situation of people in modern society (many of whom are of secular liberal persuasion) who are troubled by what they perceive to be an oversexualized culture. They may find that the media’s use of sex to sell things is objectifying, and they may also find it objectifying to be the subject of unwanted sexually motivated attention. They may determine that the presence of sexual activity skews relationships in a way that they dislike. They may decide that it is preferable to focus on other aspects of human life. For people in this situation, there is an ideological reason for avoiding sexual activity. But there is also an experience of living in an oversexualized society which causes them to find sexuality distasteful, and thus one might expect that people in this situation would develop lower levels of sexual attraction and sexual desire and higher levels of sex aversion/repulsion. In this way, there may be an interplay between ideology, experience, and biology in the formation of an asexual identity.

 

Discuss.

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Pi_the_infinite

First of all let me state the disclaimer that I'm fairly new here, so I have no context for the history of antisexualism that this may closely resemble or be mistaken for. I don't mean to be disrespectful so if I am it's just because I'm ignorant of a situation and am totally willing to hear you out and curb my language or actions.

 

I would say identity, in all it's aspects, is made up of, as you put it, "and interplay between ideology, experience, and biology." It's always bothered me that there's this huge debate over "nature vs. nurture," "are we just born this way, or are we influence into being this way by outside forces?" It's not as simple as picking one of the two. You could be born a certain way, but without the language to describe it, or a community to teach that language to you, you would probably identify as something else that your community did have a language for. You would relate to that identity as best you could. And sometimes, that may work out with you never feeling the need to question whether that was correct or not. But sometimes it doesn't work out and you do question it. And sometimes you have to create your own language for it, or fight your community about it. Which is another weird aspect of identity; there's a lot of it that we didn't ask for, but it's still there. Part of our identity is our experiences, and we experience being treated certain ways based on what people perceive us to be, even though we may not identify as such.

 

And I've wondered a lot about the very thing you mentioned about the oversexualized culture. Are we, as people on the asexual spectrum, actually repulsed by or neutral to sex, or just sex as our society has come to define it, which is abusive and objectifying and altogether lacking in any real relational connection? Does that invalidate one's identity as asexual? Of course not.

 

ugh, it's late, I don't even know if that made sense. Just want to contribute!

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20 minutes ago, Pramana said:

an experience of living in an oversexualized society which causes them to find sexuality distasteful, and thus one might expect that people in this situation would develop lower levels of sexual attraction and sexual desire and higher levels of sex aversion/repulsion.

Not sure. Yes I heard: "sex sells" But hey, I've been around the block for a while now and never seen any combined offers of fishy product + sexual services. - Shopping for a wheel set I can get packages that include a factory tour & lunch or an overnight stay near the dealership (instead of free delivery in front of my door) but nobody offers channeling me through a nearby brothel as a package deal.

Is it really helpful to call advertising content "sex"? - I'd prefer something like "vulgarity", but since this isn't my native language I hope somebody will come up with a less negative term instead of "vulgarity"/ "obscenity"?

Trying to make myself clear: If companies decide to have their products presented or surrounded by barely clad females, that might be semi-pornographic but it ain't sexual. I haven't the slightest clue how that marketing semi-porn is assumed to have an impact on folks sexuality. It leaves you free to either look for a properly dressing partner with hopefully bearable demands or come to the conclusion that you had the daily overdose of porn stuffed into your face and its time to go home fade the lights ... and call it a day.

I really don't get:

1 hour ago, Pramana said:

and thus one might expect that people in this situation would develop lower levels of sexual attraction and sexual desire and higher levels of sex aversion/repulsion.

Let's assume an alternative world with all adds & other cultural products re-done with women in proper hijab. - What could be the consequence? - At best people would remain curious how a wife might look like.

But how could such influence their sexuality? - Curiosity will wear of.

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@Busrider My idea is that some people are more likely to find the sexual objectification of people in the media upsetting, and that might be a contributing factor to those people developing a negative reaction to human sexuality in general. Essentially, if you are the sort of person who is inclined towards being more cautious with respect to sexuality and to dislike having overt expressions of sexuality pushed on you, then your reaction to an overly sexualized society might be to become less sexual than you were to start with.

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Lord Jade Cross

I suppose you could say that part of it stems from the idea that society itself implemented when they began using less clothes on people in a time where no skin was the norm for advertising.

 

I think such was the case with a brand of underwear starting with C (dont want to sound like Im promoting anything) where the crew behind it said in an interview that at the time it was considered a type of advertisement that felt more directed at the gay comunity because you had a man on a billboard wearing nothing but an underwear.

 

Its true that the popular slogan is "sex sells" when there is no actual sex being given (unless you're talking about some form of prostitution). Its more of near nude modeling to grasp your attention but it does serve a purpose. If you want to sell, half the sale is purely advertisement (anyone who works in retail or sales will agree with me on that). If you get a customer to become distracted enough, you can essentially sell them garbage and they will buy it because they are too busy living the fantasy of the advertisements your putting forward.

 

In the case of models, the women are dressed almost to the point of it being a porn session because its designed to cacth the attention of the straight oriented population. To put it in a vulgar term, its like saying "buy this and you get to look at a fine ass and tits for free". (Some of the women Ive seen at local malls are basically 2cm of clothing away from exposing their bare breasts)

 

Obviously this doesnt work for all the population but selling is more of a game of numbers and percentages, the higher the amount, the less the concern about whats "morally acceptable" (even if people dont like to hear that). If businesses (aside from actual brothels and such) were allowed to sell actual sex in order to sell a product, they would no doubt move in that direction.

 

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Pi_the_infinite

Everything in media in general (movies, music videos, tv, commercials, advertising, photography, art etc.) is 100% legit mind control. The basic concept of a movie is to convince people that what is happening on screen is actually happening. And then on top of that, there's all these way cinematographers, editors, and sound designers manipulate what's on screen to get you to think, feel, and believe the things they want you to. 

 

For example: In Mad Max, the scene where Max first see the wives, and they're cutting off their chastity belts and whatnot, the first time I saw it something felt off about it. It made me uncomfortable for some reason. It took a while, but eventually I was talking about it with someone and she explained to me that the director made the conscious decision to keep the camera still. A lot of the time in cinema, when beautiful women come on the screen, the camera moves. It pans along their bodies. And it's usually positioned in such a way that their breasts are located closer to the center of the screen than their eyes are, because we're not suppose to focus on their eyes and their reality as a human being, we're suppose to see them as beautiful bodies. Mad Max was made with the specific intent to not objectify the women, so that scene makes you feel uncomfortable because they are not being portrayed as beautiful things, they are being portrayed as humans (uncomfortably young humans) trying to escape sexual slavery.

 

But, to get back to the point, most movies are filmed in such a way that you as the viewer, whether you enjoy sex with women or not, are forced to observes all those beautiful "parts." And you will acknowledge, if only subconsciously, that they are beautiful because there are other factors being manipulated to create this beautiful image like lighting and sound and the strategic use of color and composition. Even if you don't find women sexually attractive, your brain will register this image as being beautiful and or desirable because it is designed that way. 

 

The more you study it, the more you notice those little things, and the less you're able to actually enjoy cinematic experiences. You start calling the industry on it's bullsh*t. "Look as how they portrayed the woman." "Look at all the casual misogyny." "Wow, all the non-white characters are the ones with debilitating flaws." "This romance was badly written and in no way adds to the development of the characters or furthers the main plot (hashtagbettyandjugheadwtfwhyyyyyyyyy!!!)"

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10 hours ago, Pi_the_infinite said:

The more you study it, the more you notice those little things, and the less you're able to actually enjoy cinematic experiences. You start calling the industry on it's bullsh*t. "Look as how they portrayed the woman." "Look at all the casual misogyny." "Wow, all the non-white characters are the ones with debilitating flaws." "This romance was badly written and in no way adds to the development of the characters or furthers the main plot (hashtagbettyandjugheadwtfwhyyyyyyyyy!!!)"

This makes me think about how few movies lack both sex/romance and violence. I have nothing against those elements when they contribute to the larger story, and in fact they feature in many of my favourite movies. But often they're gratuitous and badly done and merely a sensational way to grab people's attention, and as such detract from the overall quality of the work. There are so many aspects of ordinary life which don't involve sex/romance and which don't involve violence, and it would be nice to see those stories told more often.

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Pi_the_infinite

@Pramana exactly!

 

It's a very common thing, and the more you study the history of story-telling in general, the more it makes sense, because EVERYTHING in story-telling is metaphoric. The princess fairy tales are not suppose to be about a girl who is orphaned and abused by authority figures and ultimately rescued by a prince. It's about the human experience of experiencing traumas and obstacles in life, and having to rely on our intuition, our emotional memories of better times and hope in a better future (aspects of the psyche that have historically been associated with female entities), until we find the strength to defeat our demons (aspects associated with male.) Once the two join together, they become King and Queen, the rulers of a kingdom. When our inner strength works alongside our intuition, we overcome our challenges and become sovereign authorities over our own lives once again.

 

Sex/romance and violence are also generally understood things that can be used to translate a more complex idea, but the movie industry isn't really focused on telling a good story, it's focused on getting people to spend money on their product. It's no longer about handing down useful parables and instructive piece of wisdom, it's about hype, and hashtags, and lots of people consuming it. And, unfortunately, if you want to affect as many people as possible, you have to water down your product so that as many people as possible can relate to it. This happens in music too. The most popular songs are ones that have really repetitive beats and sounds, the lyrics are vague and generally positive, all the musicians sound the same, it's catchy, and generally not a great piece of art. But everyone can relate, a wide range of people no matter their age, race, religion, or even language (I live in Germany, and it's weird how many American songs are really popular on the radio, even though they're in English.) 

 

But going back to the original point you were making, I think all this in our culture has indeed been affecting us on deeper levels. I fully believe in evolution, physically, emotionally and socially. Lots people try to say things like "They're didn't use to be all these [insert sexual/gender identity here] before, so that just means they're all making it up," and also make the same argument about disorders and disabilities ("ADHD didn't exist in my day," "Autism's just caused by all these new vaccines," "Depression's just in your head," "Special snowflake, blahblahblah.") But even if it were true that these things didn't use to exist, things change, and now they do. And of course they would. The consumerist culture is not just using these tactics to draw us in a take our money, they're shaping the way we behave and treat each other, and it's having seriously negative consequences. Of course at some point we will have a community full of people who've developed an unnatural repulsion to each other. "Well, but sex is natural, it's necessary, how else will the human race continue?" Judging by the way things are going, maybe the human race shouldn't continue existing. Which is another possibility; Nature stepping in an being like, "You guys gotta chill out! No more libido for you! Or, well, I guess some of you can have it, but only for people you can't make babies with."

 

Again, does that make our identities invalid? No, not at all. Just another part of the continuous expansion that is the human existence. We're growing up.

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