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a small but (maybe) significant mention


Hypatia7

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This might not mean much to many people, but, on page 548 of At Home by Bill Bryson it says: "On the evidence, it appears that (Beau) Brummell was asexual".

To me what made it a great deal was the fact that Bryson didn't feel the need to add a foot note to explain what asexuality is.

It is as if he assumed that his readers would know what he was talking about.

Could this be the first sign that asexuality has become acceptted by culture at large?

Maybe not, but you have to admit it is a good sing.

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Awesome. Education and Visibility has come to the point that people seem to know what we are.

*shares :cake: *

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Gho St Ory Qwan

I think part of it is that if it's implied people should know what it is, they'll go about to research it. And probably will be like 'How long have others known about this? How many people are like this that I might have known?' rather than thinking 'psh, lies, people like this don't exist!'. A good method, even if it wasn't the intention. =]

:cake:

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Haven't read the book and now I want to. *Stares*

It's great news really. Glad to hear asexuality is being mentioned in relation with humans somewhere. :cake:

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Haven't read the book and now I want to. *Stares*

It's great news really. Glad to hear asexuality is being mentioned in relation with humans somewhere. :cake:

The book is actually really, really good. The asexual reference was just an added bonus.

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I think part of it is that if it's implied people should know what it is, they'll go about to research it. And probably will be like 'How long have others known about this? How many people are like this that I might have known?' rather than thinking 'psh, lies, people like this don't exist!'. A good method, even if it wasn't the intention. =]

:cake:

That's exactly what I thought: this is bound to send people on google to look asexuality up.

As for Bill Bryson's intentions I think he would be very much surprised to find out that for some people his use of the word asexual is worthy of an internet forum discussion.

I wonder how much he actually knows about asexuality?

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I had quick look through 'Beau Brummell - The ulimate dandy' by Ian Kelly from 2005, and he seemed to refute the idea if his asexuality as sanitisation of his behavior by an early Victorian biographer, but the author seemed to be skeptical about the idea of asexuality in general from what I remember. He seemed to go on the idea that as he died of syphilis and had a lot of sex, that his 'active sexual practices' defined his sexuality. It might have been the case but asexuals can also have sex for a number of reasons. I'll try to get some info from the book a.s.a.p.

edit

In the introduction the author writes "I should allow an instinctive suspicion of the idea that anyone, even the most ascetically stylish, is asexual: a position held by a supreising number of fashion writers and by some contemporiaries abou Brummel",

In one part of the book he defines as person who is asexual as being 'utterly uninterested in sex'. Later on when thinking about what could be behind his indifference , he notes that "One symptom of primary syphilis is a cruelly erratic libido". This author seems to think Brummell was a troubled bisexual.

I haven't sat down and read the whole book yet, so hopefully I will get to read his arguments in more detail.

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Gotta love Bill Bryson ! He was always my favourite writer. Haven't read this book yet, must look out for it.....

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