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2 Mexican articles about Asexuality


Angelnoir

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As you may know I like to skim through the internet and search for articles about asexuality in spanish language ( Asexuality Research at the UNAM ).
One article is from a homosexual e-zine (spanish language) : http://www.ambienteg.com/glbt-en-el-mundo/...lir-del-armario
It's pretty positive and even narrates a story about an asexual, the comments are also mostly positive.
This one is from a (printed) magazine (that exists since the 70s) but I don't know what kind of magazine this is, seems to be "intellectual"....the article connects the herbivorous men with "western" asexuals and pretty much puts them in an extremely bad light (spanish) : http://www.nexos.com.mx/?P=leerarticulo&Article=56100

Here are the translations, if anyone wants to correct them, feel free to do so.smile.gif

So I start with the positive one:

Asexuals start to come out of the closet
The first time that I got to know an asexual I never thought about the possibility that they even exist and he didn't have an idea that what he was going through had a name.
I've got to know him in my first university year and everyone of us had the age where you try to define yourself as a person.

Me being a lesbian was something very trivial when we discovered that Julio, for giving it a name, had no interest in sex - although he was a handsome and intelligent guy. He never had tried it and he didn't want to, he didn't even practice onanism - some asexuals do practice that. In one word, he did have no interest.

After all, Julio wanted to find a girl just like him, someone who'd accept a celibate life and who wouldn't discart having children. Julio was an hetero-romantic asexual, though he didn't know it.

With the passing of years we found out that there were others like him, some homo-romantic, others bi-romantic and finally those who were totally a-romantic.

The history of Julio entered my mind when I found this article by the San Fransisco chronicle which states that asexuals start to come out of the closet and are organizing themselves.

Asexuality almost hasn't been studied, but many scientists believe that it's just another sexual orientation with a prevalence of 1-2% in the population.

There's no doubt that they are not ill, asexuals don't have any sexual disfunction, they simply lack desires.

Actually, asexuals (not having specific places of encounter) organize themselves through the Internet and make meetings, since having a relationship with another asexual is much easier - although it's not indispensable.

Asexuality still is a lesser known phenomenon and thus very little understood, that's why it's intresting to see more and more voices who publicly talk about their lack of sexual appetite as another form of being.


And now, I want to WARN you. If you ever wondered how religious people could view asexuality negatively (or in this case it's more focused on herbivorous men but still it's about their disinterest in sex) then you have to read this article. I'm not sure about this author, as far as I know he is a cherished author who has even released his works all over the world, still...I'm not sure about his political or religious affilitations.......Nonetheless, translating this article was a terrible task but I wanted to show you this, since it shows how there are people becoming aware of asexuality in a negative way. Remember that this is a printed article in a regularly released magazine........

The asexual rebellion

The police of consciousness has never succeeded in restraining libido, because the conservative morals stimulate desire much better than the incitment to intemperance. According to Georges Bataille, the most brilliant theoretician of eroticism, the church contributed in igniting the lubricious imagination of the occidental civilization with their rigid prohibitions, well, the fight between flesh and the spirit has always been an inexhaustible source of pleasure for millions of sinners. Something similar can be said about Judaism and distinct protestant sects, especially the puritan one, which in times of Queen Victorica contributed in worsening the profligacy of the english dandys.That is why the sexual revolution which inaugurated a new amorous world in the 60s, is a double-edged weapon: it has broken many shackles but it also threatens with extinguishing the peccable disease which in other epoches provided fuel for obscene fantasies.In countries where judeochristian morals still exercise paternalism over devotional souls and rebelious bodies, buggery enjoys a candid health.
But outside of its area of influence, in the asian country most saturated with pornography, Japan, there's happening a great involutional phenomenon: the emergence of a generation of youths who have opted without constraint for sexual abstinence.

Some months ago journalist Tomoko Okate of the Japan Times alarmed in a report called "Blurring the boundaries", in which she assured that 60% of the male Japanese youth have few to no interest in sex, decline relationship with women, prefer to live in their parents' home instead of becoming independent, don't try to better their economic situation (the economic crisis wouldn't let them anyway), they only live on cereals with milk, have an ill adhernce to their mothers and they believe (with certain evidence) that most marriages are unhappy.
For their abulia and asitia, author Maki Fukasawa has given them a derogatory name in 2007: soshokukei (herbivorous men), since they have refused the flesh, in the bed and at the table. Relinquished to a vegetative life, the soshokukei have no political nor amorous ideals.
They also don't have strong vocations: they are only interested in the latest clothing styles, showing off their new and perfect hair cuts, polishing their nails, having a slim figure and pass their free hours navigating on the net. As enemies of the compromise, they believe that courting a women puts them in a psychological disadvantage, and although they can have girlfriends, they prefer to have a defensive and conformist celibacy.
Their sexual apathy is reflected in the birth rates with serious consequences for the Japanese economy. The industrial sector which is most penalized is the production of condoms (their sales have dramatically dropped since 1999).

Desperate in finding mates, Japanese women (from 19 to 30 years of age) fight over the few machos of the old school who are still capable of enjoying them. But the soshokukei don't sweat and they don't fear anything. According to Okate, they have lost their virility to such extremes that some of them even urinate in a sitting postion and have adopted a masculine corset as garment, an odd invention by Japanese designers.
The androgynous clothes of the herbivorous men are no symptom of homosexuality: it's about taking a neutral identity whih lies between the masculine and the feminine pole, to avoid contact with both.

Some psychologist give credit to the bombing with erotic provocations in the media for this situation, in Japan even comics for children (mangas) and animations have an erotic profile. Saturated with sex since childhood, the youth doesn't find a better way to protest against the system than ignoring the supreme value of the established order. It's about the rejection of induced excitation, but it's also about an unconscious defence against an excess of temptations which not even the hottest brain can handle. That's why AXE (deoderant company) has withdrawn a commercial with beautiful semi-naked models: the young herbivors, an important part of the market, have declind this campaign with a silent boycott.

The Japanese example starts to expand in other parts of the world. Assumed as a hunted minority, the young asexuals inhabiting this planet have created an internet forum, AVEN, where they claim respect for their preference, they oppose to be stigmatized as nerds, crybabies or impotents. The most radical of them neglect having desires, but psychologists and sexologists which participate in such debates question that soshokukei and their occidental emulators could have changed nature: they believe tha many of them burn all alone and do justice for themselves with their own hands. That's how it goes, without a doubt, but it has to be researched since so many youths have already rejected shared pleasures and fear contact with foreign bodies. Is this about a voluntary castration or induced through the demands of a hypersexualised world?
Today many women believe that they need to have plastic surgeries on their faces and their breasts and an infinity of youths are obsessed with the size of their penis and take viagra to act like supermachos. In such a climate of competitve sexuality, the body has ceased to be a medium of liberation and instead transformed into weapon and a sign of status, the shy, the insecure, the ugly, the fat and the old have been banished into marginalization.

The authoritarian temptation of transforming pleasure into duty and the sexual darwinism derived from it have repulsed many millions of youths, not only to those who lack physical qualities and thus are excluded of the posession of beautiful bodies, but also any sensible soul. Just like the homosexual community isn't at the edge of this competition, herbivorous have't found refuge in it. In the past being single was considered to be sad but it wasn't
discreditable for anybody.Today it's such a stigma that the author Michel Houllebecq, maybe one of the most lucid analysts of sexual pathologies, observed that the division of society into antagonistic classes has been replaced by a new fight between the class of the victors in bed, millionaires in orgasms, and the outcasts condemned to sexual misery. This would explain why asexuals need to strengthen their pride: if they are not respected they will be scrunched. The strangest observation is that the soshokukei didn't try romanticism as antidote against the banalisation of sex: their fear of bodies has led them to pose like mannequins. Actually, they dress to the rhythm of sexy fashion, just like if they were admiring the enemy who opresses them, deep down.

The porn industry has succeeded in this which the catholic church has never reached after thousands of years of preaching: separate the youths from carnal sin.
If the religion that has invented orignial sin would have planted seeds in the Empire of the rising sun, the fear of the eternal punishment would have enrichened the sexual lifes of the Japanese people. Unfortunately, the Japanes lack a solid prohibitionist tradition which would have preserved buggery. The new missionaries of Pro Life can and have to plant the seeds of procreation between the Japanese youths. They have to be separated from the internet.
If the herbivorous knew about the Vulva bringing them to hell, they would start to f*** like God dictates it....


And finally, I've found another (french) article which talks very negatively about asexuality but from a ... I guess it's a sex-positive attitude:
French: http://eurotik.cafebabel.com/fr/post/2007/...9/Ethere-sexuel
German translation: http://eurotik.cafebabel.com/de/post/2007/...9/Ethere-sexuel
But it's pretty old (2007), thus I don't bother to translate it, and I don't think anybody wants to read another load of.....bad stuff from another point of view.




2015 Edit - Original versions:


ASEXUALES, EMPIEZAN A SALIR DEL ARMARIO

SUSANA GLBT EN EL MUNDO, INTEGRACIÓN 30 COMENTARIOS 27/08/2009

La primera vez que conocí un asexual ni tan siquiera me había planteado la posibilidad de que existiesen y él no tenía ni idea de que lo que le ocurría tenía nombre. Lo conocí durante mi primer año de universidad y, en aquella época, todos teníamos la edad en que uno trata de definirse como persona.

Que yo fuera lesbiana pasó a ser algo totalmente banal cuando descubrimos que a Julio, por ponerle algún nombre, no le interesaba para nada el sexo –pese a ser un chico muy guapo e inteligente-. Nunca lo había hecho y tampoco tenía ganas de probarlo, es más, ni tan siquiera practicaba el onanismo –algunos asexuales si que lo hacen-. En una palabra, no tenía ningún interés.

Pese a todo, Julio quería encontrar una novia como él, que aceptara una vida célibe y no descartaba totalmente tener hijos. Julio era un asexual hetero-romántico, aunque ni él lo sabia.

Con el paso de los años descubrimos que había otros como él, algunos homo-románticos, otros bi-románticos y por último los que son totalmente a-románticos.

La historia de Julio me ha venido a la cabeza después de toparme con un artículo del San Francisco Chronicle en el que constatan que los asexuales están empezando a salir del armario y se están organizando.

La asexualidad casi no ha sido estudiada, pero muchos científicos creen que se trata simplemente de otra orientación sexual más, con una prevalencia de entre el 1% y el 2% de la población.

En ningún caso se trata de enfermos, los asexuales no tienen ningún tipo de disfunción sexual, simplemente carecen de deseos.

Actualmente los asexuales, al no disponer de lugares de encuentro específicos, se organizan a través de webs en internet y hacen quedadas, puesto que es mucho más sencillo mantener una relación afectiva con alguien que también es asexual –aunque no imprescindible-.

La asexualidad todavía sigue siendo un fenómeno poco conocido y a causa de ello poco comprendido, por eso es interesante que cada vez haya más voces que públicamente hablen de su falta de apetito sexual como otra forma de ser.



01/12/2009
La rebelión asexual
Enrique Serna

Los policías de la conciencia jamás han podido refrenar la libido, porque la moral conservadora estimula el deseo mucho más que la incitación al libertinaje. Según Georges Bataille, el teórico más brillante del erotismo, la iglesia católica tiene el mérito de haber contribuido a incendiar la imaginación lúbrica de la civilización occidental con sus rígidas prohibiciones, pues la lucha entre la carne y el espíritu ha sido una fuente inagotable de placer para millones de pecadores. Otro tanto puede decirse del judaísmo y de las distintas sectas protestantes, especialmente la puritana, que en tiempos de la reina Victoria contribuyó a exacerbar la depravación de los dandys ingleses. Por eso la revolución sexual que inauguró un nuevo mundo amoroso en los años sesenta es un arma de doble filo: ha roto muchas ataduras pero también amenaza con extinguir el morbo pecaminoso que en otras épocas suministraba combustible a las fantasías obscenas. En los países donde la moral judeocristiana ejerce todavía una tutela paternalista sobre las almas devotas y los cuerpos rebeldes, la lujuria goza de cabal salud. Pero fuera de su área de influencia, en el país asiático más saturado de pornografía, Japón, está ocurriendo un grave fenómeno involutivo: el surgimiento de una generación de jóvenes que han optado sin coacciones por la abstinencia sexual.
rebelion

Hace unos meses el periodista Tomoko Okate, del Japan Times, dio la voz de alarma en el reportaje “Blurring the boundaries”, donde aseguró que el 60% de los jóvenes varones japoneses tiene poco o ningún interés en el sexo, rehuye el trato con mujeres, prefiere vivir en casa de sus padres que independizarse, no aspira a mejorar su situación económica (ni la crisis económica se los permitiría), se alimenta exclusivamente de cereales con leche, tiene un apego enfermizo a sus madres, y cree, con cierto fundamento, que la inmensa mayoría de los matrimonios son infelices. Por su abulia y su inapetencia, el escritor Maki Fukasawa los designó en 2007 con un mote despectivo: soshokukei (varones herbívoros), pues han renunciado a la carne, tanto en la cama como en la mesa. Resignados a una vida vegetativa, los soshokukei no tienen ideales políticos ni amorosos. Tampoco vocaciones fuertes: sólo les interesa vestir a la última moda, lucir una caballera ondulada y perfecta, pulirse las uñas, tener una figura esbelta, y pasar sus ratos de ocio navegando en internet. Enemigos de los compromisos, creen que cortejar a una mujer los coloca en desventaja psicológica frente a ella, y aunque pueden tener amigas, prefieren mantener un celibato defensivo y conformista. Su apatía sexual ya se ha reflejado en los índices de natalidad, con graves consecuencias para la economía japonesa. El sector industrial más perjudicado son las fábricas de condones, cuyas ventas han caído en picada desde 1999.

Desesperadas por encontrar un varón, las japonesas de 19 a 30 años se disputan a dentelladas a los pocos machos de la vieja guardia que todavía están dispuestos a gozarlas. Pero los soshokukei ni sudan ni se acongojan. Según Okate, han perdido la virilidad a tal extremo que muchos de ellos orinan sentados y han adoptado como prenda el corpiño masculino, una peregrina invención de los modistos nipones. La indumentaria andrógina de los herbívoros no es un síntoma de homosexualidad: se trata, más bien, de asumir una identidad neutral entre el polo masculino y el femenino, para evitar el contacto con ambos.

Algunos psicólogos atribuyen esta epidemia de castidad al bombardeo de provocaciones eróticas en los medios audiovisuales, pues en Japón hasta las historietas para niños (los famosos “manga”) y los dibujos animados tienen un marcado perfil erótico. Saturados de sexo desde la infancia, los jóvenes no encuentran mejor manera de protestar contra el sistema que darle la espalda al valor supremo del orden establecido. Se trata, pues, de un rechazo a la excitación inducida, pero también de una defensa inconsciente contra el exceso de tentaciones que ni el cerebro más calenturiento puede procesar. Por eso la compañía de perfumes y desodorantes AXE acaba de retirar de la televisión japonesa una campaña publicitaria con guapas modelos semidesnudas: los jóvenes herbívoros, un segmento importante del mercado, repudiaron la campaña con un silencioso boicot.

El ejemplo japonés empieza a cundir en otras partes del mundo. Asumidos como una minoría perseguida, los jóvenes asexuales del planeta han creado un foro en internet, la AVEN (Asexual Visibility Education Network), donde exigen respeto a su preferencia, y se oponen a ser estigmatizados como nerds, maricas o impotentes. Los más radicales niegan tener deseos, pero los psicólogos y sexólogos que participan en esos debates dudan que los soshokukei y sus émulos occidentales puedan haber mudado de naturaleza: más bien creen que muchos de ellos arden a solas y se hacen justicia por su propia mano. Así debe ocurrir, sin duda, pero habría que investigar por qué tantos jóvenes en el mundo han dado la espalda al placer compartido y temen el contacto con los cuerpos ajenos. ¿Se trata de una castración voluntaria o impuesta por las exigencias de un mundo hipersexualizado? En la actualidad miles de muchachas creen que para ser deseables deben operarse la cara, el busto y los glúteos y una infinidad de jóvenes obsesionados con el tamaño y la dureza del pene consumen viagra para comportarse como supermachos. En este clima de sexualidad competitiva, en que el cuerpo ha dejado de ser un medio de liberación (la “nave de los hechizos” de López Velarde), para convertirse en un arma de combate y un signo de status, los tímidos, los inseguros, los feos, los gordos y los viejos han quedado relegados a una marginalidad oprobiosa.

La tentación autoritaria de convertir el placer en deber y el darwinismo sexual derivado de ella deben repugnar a millones de jóvenes, no sólo a los que por su falta de cualidades físicas están excluidos de la disputa por la posesión de los cuerpos bellos, sino a cualquier espíritu sensible. Como la comunidad homosexual no está el margen de esa competencia, los herbívoros tampoco han podido encontrar acogida en ella. En el pasado, ser un solterón o una solterona podía considerarse triste, pero no era deshonroso para nadie. Hoy en día es un estigma tan difícil de sobrellevar que a juicio del novelista Michel Houellebecq, tal vez el analista más lúcido de las patologías sexuales contemporáneas, la división de la sociedad en clases antagónicas ha sido reemplazada por una nueva lucha de clases entre los triunfadores de la cama, millonarios en orgasmos, y los parias condenados a la miseria sexual. Esto explicaría por qué los asexuales necesitan reafirmar su orgullo: si no se hacen respetar los seguirán pisoteando. Lo extraño, en el caso de los soshokukei, es que no hayan intentado reivindicar el romanticismo como antídoto contra la banalización del sexo: su miedo a los cuerpos los ha llevado simplemente a posar como maniquíes. De hecho, se visten y arreglan de acuerdo a los cánones de la moda sexy, como si en el fondo admiraran al enemigo que los sojuzga.

La mercadotecnia y la industria del porno han logrado lo que el clero católico nunca pudo conseguir en dos mil años de sermones flamígeros: apartar a los jóvenes del pecado carnal. En 1596 el galeón filipino en el que navegaba el jesuita mexicano Felipe de las Casas, hoy conocido como San Felipe de Jesús, encalló en las costas japonesas después de un naufragio. Junto con toda la tripulación, Felipe fue crucificado semanas después en Nagasaki por órdenes del emperador Taikosama, que diez años antes había expulsado del Japón a los misioneros cristianos. Si la religión que inventó el pecado original hubiera echado raíces en el imperio del Sol Naciente, el temor a la condenación eterna habría sazonado y enriquecido la vida sexual de los japoneses. Por desgracia, la idolatría sacrificó a los mártires de la fe y los nipones carecen de una sólida tradición prohibicionista que preserve la lujuria contra sus promotores mercenarios. Los encantos de la culpa, que tantas pasiones han despertado en el mundo cristiano, nunca llegaron a ese desdichado reducto del paganismo. Los nuevos misioneros de Pro Vida pueden y deben retomar la estafeta de San Felipe para fomentar la procreación entre la juventud nipona. Es urgente alejarlos del internet y acercarlos a las epístolas de San Pablo. Cuando los herbívoros sepan que la vulva es el umbral del infierno, empezarán a coger como Dios Manda: con el alma atribulada y el miembro firme.

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Okay that last article was just hilariously bad.

:blink: A reply!

Ha, yeah, I know. It really is. But the worst thing about this article is that it has been published in an established magazine (which hasn't a too big audience, it's directed to upper middle class and upper class...people)....so...that's even worse.

Or are you talking about the untranslated one? Which actually isn't too different from this one if you examine its core.

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*tries reading the second quoted article but fails to manage it*

I've read about the soshoku-kei before, and I don't think that any of the articles I've read really have paid attention to the fact that this kind of "condition" of not wanting intimacy with people outside of themselves isn't a recent phenomenon in Japan, or even that there's more than one way that this has expressed itself. Right now, there's a big problem in Japan where anti-socializing is treated as a medical condition--I can't remember what the term was, but the overall modern culture in Japan facilitates not needing to talk to anyone to get around in a person's daily life. A person can literally go about their business--the mall, their work, the library, the store--and not make any significant contact with another person, be it talking or even making eye contact, for days straight. I don't think that the soshoku-kei are anything particularly noteworthy in the trend of people losing interest in other people, for it's just the latest in a line of already prevalent "conditions" in Japan; the hikkikomori (shut-in), who never leaves the house; the NEETs, who never talk to people outside from internet interaction, and who don't develop communication/social skills outside of that purview--there's more where that came from.

I don't necessarily think that the soshoku-kei should really be even classified as a "condition" or whatever--unlike the other two I listed, soshoku-kei can still function in society and do well for themselves, while the hikkikomori and the NEETs have trouble doing anything outside of their own homes, and can't really relate to other people.

Also, I laugh at the fact that the article basically says that the western church is responsible for exciting libido by preaching against it--psssh, yeah right. Bishops used to in chairs shaped like people licking their private parts, and illustrated bible texts had doodles on the side of people "wrestling". I call bullshit.

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*tries reading the second quoted article but fails to manage it*

I've read about the soshoku-kei before, and I don't think that any of the articles I've read really have paid attention to the fact that this kind of "condition" of not wanting intimacy with people outside of themselves isn't a recent phenomenon in Japan, or even that there's more than one way that this has expressed itself. Right now, there's a big problem in Japan where anti-socializing is treated as a medical condition--I can't remember what the term was, but the overall modern culture in Japan facilitates not needing to talk to anyone to get around in a person's daily life. A person can literally go about their business--the mall, their work, the library, the store--and not make any significant contact with another person, be it talking or even making eye contact, for days straight. I don't think that the soshoku-kei are anything particularly noteworthy in the trend of people losing interest in other people, for it's just the latest in a line of already prevalent "conditions" in Japan; the hikkikomori (shut-in), who never leaves the house; the NEETs, who never talk to people outside from internet interaction, and who don't develop communication/social skills outside of that purview--there's more where that came from.

I don't necessarily think that the soshoku-kei should really be even classified as a "condition" or whatever--unlike the other two I listed, soshoku-kei can still function in society and do well for themselves, while the hikkikomori and the NEETs have trouble doing anything outside of their own homes, and can't really relate to other people.

Also, I laugh at the fact that the article basically says that the western church is responsible for exciting libido by preaching against it--psssh, yeah right. Bishops used to in chairs shaped like people licking their private parts, and illustrated bible texts had doodles on the side of people "wrestling". I call bullshit.

Thanks for that intresting information! :)

And don't you worry, I posted this article because of it beings so bad, distortioned and uninformed...it hurts.

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  • 2 months later...
Pillbox circus

Read the french one, was surprisingly well researched (unlike the one on japan) and included links to here...Odd stuff, but very soap-box-y (So anti-asexual you have to wonder what kind of mental deficiencies they have)

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Well, it's nice to see that we are more and more visible, but I just can't stop feeling sad at the look of the comments. Even in the first article, which is rather positive, people DON'T UNDERSTAND that asexuality is not the same as not having sex. Someone even said that asexuality is OK as long as she doesn't fall in love with an asexual, cause then she'll have a really bad time. WTF???

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  • 4 weeks later...
geek-in-a-half-shell

The only thing that western religion did for the Japanese was make them more homophobic. In the old days, samurai were encouraged to pursue relationships with other men.

Besides, only 0.7% of the Japanese population is Christian/Catholic anyway...

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