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Freud and asexuality


LittleGoody2Shoes

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LittleGoody2Shoes

I never read enough Freud to know what he would say about asexuality. Did he say anything about it? What do you think he'd say about it?

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LittleGoody2Shoes
3 minutes ago, asexjoe said:

He'd laugh in your face. Jung, as well.

They wouldn't believe us?

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A hundred years ago? No. Not even close.

 

As a matter of fact, most psychoanalysts will give you lip service about your asexuality, while thinking evolutionary psychology predisposes you to sexuality.

 

I was in analysis for 20 years and I don't think she would have believed it, had I told her.

 

I believe it, to my soul, for myself, only because the simple definition does not require a scientific explanation.

 

I'm old enough, experienced enough, aware enough, to finally accept the truth.

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LittleGoody2Shoes
5 minutes ago, asexjoe said:

A hundred years ago? No. Not even close.

 

As a matter of fact, most psychoanalysts will give you lip service about your asexuality, while thinking evolutionary psychology predisposes you to sexuality.

 

I was in analysis for 20 years and I don't think she would have believed it, had I told her.

 

I believe it, to my soul, for myself, only because the simple definition does not require a scientific explanation.

 

I'm old enough, experienced enough, aware enough, to finally accept the truth.

Hopefully someday everyone else will just accept that we are truly asexual.

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24 minutes ago, PostHuman said:

Hopefully someday everyone else will just accept that we are truly asexual.

It depends on where you go!! I've spent a lot of time on FetLife (among many highly sexual people) and was almost always greeted with positivity and understanding when I mentioned believing I was asexual (which I don't identify with anymore, I don't really identify with anything though I'm more sexual than ace). Anyway, I knew I wasn't interested in having sex and people there were enthusiastic to learn more about it, so I think it totally depends on which circles you're trying to discus it in. In the same way many people now are positive about homosexuality but some hate it and some deny it's existence as a legitimate orientation, just depends on who you talk to! The term asexual has been used in some places to define someone who isn't interested in having partnered sex since at least the 80's (before then it was more commonly used to define a genderless-appearing person) so hopefully as time progresses it will continue to become more widely known and accepted by more of the general public ^_^:cake:

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straightouttamordor

I'm no understudy of Freud or Jung but many in modern pyscology won't accept it. It's funny how subjective they can be about what constitutes quote "normal" in other behaviors or biological functions yet they adhere to an arcane immoveable description of someone's lack of sexual attraction. Dismissing it as low libido or trauma in the pysche is a poor hypothesis at best.

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Spoiler

Well, after I've read some of Freud's writings (still not all though), I think it's pretty obvious his view on "everything is motivated by sexuality, sex here, sex there, phallus everywhere!" (slightly exaggerating) is mostly due to the patients he dealt with and the overall society and standards at the time.

(Perhaps TMI) Example of what I mean:

Spoiler

A (female) patient he was dealing with who was around 20 (if I recall correctly) didn't know the process of sex and thought her husband peed into her during their wedding night which (if I'm not mistaken) shocked and traumatized her. She couldn't understand why anyone would do that.

Now if you read things like this, you would realize things have come a long way and sexual awareness and education was very overdue.

Many traumas and issues of his patients could be actually pinpointed to such bad experiences or (negatively) overwhelming experiences with sex, so it's no surprise he focused his research and thoughts on this taboo topic. Furthermore, it was something that wasn't being talked about at the time, it was filthy, it was nasty and something a married couple should only engage in secretly in the darkness. I feel like this is often forgotten and as you know, if something is "forbidden" or "taboo", it's especially interesting to take a look at for most, Freud probably included.

 

The way he shaped his thoughts and how he made conclusions, revisions of former ideas and used them to build new concepts can be seen very clearly in his writings (really, I recommend reading them in chronological order or at least check a summary/breakdown of the most important breakthroughs and popular theories ;)) and same applies to the roots which made him ponder about it in the first place.

I think if we were to ask Freud during his lifetime back then, he would indeed have troubles believing asexuality is even a thing and rather pinpoint it on some trauma and stubbornly search for the cause like some psychologists and psychiatrists still do today, perhaps even with a similar reasoning and by using his ideas and theories in an attempt to explain it. After all the things he's dealt with and years he has focused on it, I really doubt anyone would be able to change his point of view.

My mind claims he would have likely said something like "You weren't able to conclude your Oedipus complex and overcome your fear of castration/penis envy" or claim "You couldn't overcome one of the earlier stages of psychosexual development and you simply shifted your libido on something else and didn't even get to that stage" and maybe even offer a way to fix it (maybe through hypnosis? :lol:). Maybe he wouldn't consider it to fit anywhere and even use this experience of talking to someone who's claiming they're asexual to expand his theories, but I doubt he would actually acknowledge asexuality as an own thing rather than adapting it into his theories as an error during development.

But that's just my rough and flawed simulation of how Freud would think about it. We can't know for sure and can only speculate.

It would also depend when you would have asked him I guess.

I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I think by the end of his lifetime he was slowly distancing himself from his Oedipus complex idea, I couldn't find anything about that on the net right now, so correct me if I'm wrong and my mind just mixed things up or something like that.

 

And don't forget: Experiences shape a human and their views on things.

Who knows how Freud would think about it if he was still alive or was instead living in this age. I assume he would be thinking about it to an extent if not totally differently, but considering he was one of those who also contributed to how things are in this age (even if it was just to a small extent), it would be an entirely different society to begin with, so it's hard to predict in the first place. :P

 

I would probably be able to express myself better and shorter if I didn't have to translate my thoughts into English there. I have read the writings in German and struggle translating it so I had to take a simpler approach... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

tl;dr: I assume he would try to make it fit in with his theories of "everyone is sexual and was born sexual", which (in my opinion) developed because many of his patients dealt with sexual trauma or due to lack of sexual education and awareness and it was a taboo (something which probably already made it interesting enough for him to explore and work with). Perhaps he would be even modifying his ideas and concepts as a conclusion to talking with an asexual but he would make it something pathological rather than accepting it "as it is" and it would be hard to change his stance on it due to the experiences he made.

 

super-tl;dr: We can't know for sure, it was a different time and society and his views and concepts were based on his experiences at that time. Depends when you would have asked him in the past or if he (somehow) was alive today. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

PS: To answer your first question: Yes, he did say something about asexuality in a way and his stance was (roughly paraphrasing what he said): The perception that a child would be born asexual is wrong and every human is born a sexual being, it just develops slightly differently for each and it can go wrong, but sexuality is still there. (Quickest, nonlengthy English source I could find on that.)

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Most of Freud's theories and practices have been proven wrong for today's standards. There are some bases thought that are still relevant. And yeah, I would believe that he would just say "you are just repressing your sexual desires because you feel guilty to feel secretly sexually attracted to your parents"

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