I am not a large person. I barely hit 5′3″ (the last visit I had to the doctor’s office placed me at 5′2.5″ – but they were wrong, and I will fight for that extra half-inch with my life), and I am, as a biological female, naturally rather slight, with the very widest part of me at something like 35″ around. I have little muscle mass, and I am, generally, very small.

Most of the time this bothers me, at least somewhat – as I look for men’s clothing, the shirts take up half of my person; while driving I have difficulty seeing out of the back window; when my classmates childishly grab things from me and hold them aloft, I have to practically attack them to retrieve my stolen items; whenever I put away dishes and have to hop up onto the counter to shelf the plates - but I find, with ever-increasing clarity (and similarly mounting feelings of idiocy at having never noticed this before), that the only times I am at all upset with being small are when other people (either specifically or as a group – i.e., Society At Large) are involved. When I am by myself, living in the parts of the world fitted for me, I feel fine – in fact, many times, as I exist by myself, I feel good about my size.

So it is not being small that bothers me*, but rather living in a world that is not – and is built around the idea that people are, generally, larger than me. This assumption is not unfair, necessarily – the only way I can claim the title “small,” after all, is through the classification of my size as somehow below average; it is, by definition, non-standard – but it is remarkably frustrating.

And this is, I think, the same attitude that you could take towards all manner of “non-standard” characteristics – I may be small, nerdy, vegetarian, genderqueer, and asexual (admittedly all pretty low on the Winner’s Podium at the Oppression Olympics – a bit like Bermuda in Vancouver – but still definitely participants), but none of that bothers me. Rather, the reactions (which are often negative) to the same, and especially straight denial of the validity or justification (depending) of any of them, do.

And such is living asexual in a heavily sexual world – I speak from rather limited experience (unfortunately enough), but I can say pretty definitively that the US is situated in two camps, sexually speaking; the first is a kind of prudish acknowledgement of sex with hushed tones and heavy judgement, and the other is a grossly exaggerated hyper-sexualization of everything from chocolate to… well, to everything else. Asexuality, I think, fits snugly between the two (or my own experiences do, in any case – and, as this is my blog, my experiences are automatically the default and standard**).

My point has got away from me a little, so let me reclaim it – being asexual (and all of the various other small descriptors that make the “default human”*** confused) doesn’t bother me, but it bothering other people does. I’m entirely comfortable with myself – with my lack of sexual desire with my interests lying slightly askew from the mainstream, from my sexuality being a great big jumble of confusion, with not wanting to be a man or a woman – but I’m not comfortable with living in a not-me-shaped world.

This is not to say, of course, that I think the world should re-orient itself to suit me and my desires – rather, the world should un-orient itself. With a variety of issues, the problem isn’t necessarily that there isn’t enough for the “oppressed” (used in quotes due to varying accuracy in employing said phrase, depending on the othered group) group, but that the idea of adding things to counterbalance prejudices makes less sense than just removing those prejudices – obviously, such a simplistic view doesn’t always work (if it did, we’d be living in a Lego world where everything is made of discrete, fully uncomplicated parts), but regarding sexuality, I think it just might. “Non-standard” sexualities have been sufficiently othered – homosexuality is an abomination, bisexuality is a farce, asexuality is a disorder – but the solution is not to over-glorify them, but rather to un-glorify heterosexuality. There’s nothing about wanting to have sex with someone whose reproductive system anatomically complements, rather than matches, your own is inherently any better, any more natural, or any more reasonable than any other combination of desires that are made possible by the rather dazzling array of variance present in the world, and it should be treated as such.

*And I fully recognize that, as fall as smallness goes, I’m on the larger end, but in regards to global and national averages, I am firmly below them (well, outside of Asia – but I don’t live in Asia, nor do I plan to, so it doesn’t help me at all).

**A joke, I assure you.

***For the US: tall(ish), likes sports, eats meat, heterosexual, wants/likes sex, wants/likes sex only with the other sex, doesn’t even need to remember that heterosexuality – or definitions of the same – rejects the opportunity for genderqueerness, doesn’t care about that, rejects nerdiness and nerd culture, cisgendered, etc.

As a member (if most of that involvement is spent lurking) of a rampantly third wave feminist website dedicated to, as its subtitle-of-sorts will tell you, to “celebrity, sex, fashion for women,” I hear a lot about sex positivity. Or, really liking sex, in any case. From what I’ve seen of the rest of the feminist blogosphere, sex positivity is a Big Thing and really Very Important.

At first glance, it would seem that sex positivity – yay, sex!!! - and asexuality – oh, no sex, please – would not be well-suited, since one is (superficially) a celebration of the same thing of which eschewing is a defining feature of the other. How can an effort to get people to really like and enjoy sex mesh with one that encourages people to just… not? Or so the argument might go.

Unsurprisingly, I suppose, on the one post relating to asexuality itself (rather than situations forcing someone into celibacy, or predominant assertions regarding female sexuality – namely, that it doesn’t exist) that I could find on the website, which was part of the 20/20 segment on asexuals featuring a few of the staples from circa 2005 television appearances, the comments were largely either confused or discouraging. Many of them – those who comment enthusiastically on posts regarding favorite sex toys or celebrities they’d like to see naked – simply could not (could not, I say!) understand how someone could possibly not want sex, as if it were the great reward for living or the Holy Grail found in a potentially dangerous, apparently awesome physical activity. That is, because their experiences with sex and sexual attraction were some that they treasured and highly appreciated – something I can absolutely respect, right along with their perfect freedom to do the same – it must automatically translate to the default, or at least the presumed default/ideal that tends to form the standards of existence – if you aren’t hitting this (appreciation and enjoyment of sex, and, ideally, lots of it), then you’re obviously falling short in some way.

This kind of thinking is slightly frustrating and kind of funny, really, coming from a group of people characterized by accepting the non-standard – after all, most of the current leftist social activism is focusing on the un-”othering” of thoroughly othered groups – or at least those with some degree of visibility beyond the internet. It simply tickles me that people for whom homosexuality, trans-sexuality, and polyamorous or “open” relationships are old hat and not even approaching strange could react so negatively - so automatically and unthinkingly – to something that, really, has numerous benefits (as well as its fair share of unfortunate qualities, but I have yet to encounter them). I suppose they might argue that denying your sexuality is denying yourself one of life’s most glorious indulgences, and thus constitutes hurting yourself.

And yet, asexuality (that is, asexuality as a movement, since it cannot, by itself, be about anything – it isn’t a body of philosophy, after all) is about embracing your sexuality – just in a slightly unconventional way. And, at its heart, that’s what sex positivity is about; while a natural progression of the freeing of sex from its clunky and occasionally sinister moral baggage, taboo nature, or all-around prudish denial may be the kind of highly enthusiastic embracing of sex as act and as intimacy that is so clearly illustrated in the people who most directly benefit from it, the point, really, is simply to naturalize sex and allow people the opportunity to pursue the sex life that is most wholly fulfilling to them – so it’s not that (practicing) asexuality is an outright denial of the validity of sex positivity, but rather simply another manifestation of its central goals. To be celibate as an asexual is to lead a sexually fulfilling life,just perhaps not in the way implied through the term.

Yes, it's true. Unfortunately production and real life issues mounted too much to keep the show going, so this will indeed be the last time the A Life Team gathers to talk about everything asexual. In the final show, we go over the remaining feedback, go over some random issues and explain our reasons for quitting the show.

We'd like to thank everyone who participated in the show by sending comments and contributing in any way. And naturally a special thanks goes out to everyone who listened to the show.

Cruising Netflix for something to watch on "Instant" view, I came across a TV series called Cashmere Mafia. Lasting only 7 episodes, it looked like some decently mindless entertainment. Watching the first episode, the show was so silly that I almost felt embarrassed, even though I was by myself. However, I got hooked and watched the whole series. Anyway, the show is very similar to Sex and the City, but it focuses much more on the protagonists' careers (they all went to business school together) and their struggles to balance high-powered careers and family. As silly as the show appears, I think it does verge on making some interesting statements about gender roles and women who are more successful at work than the men in their lives. If we can take a moment to admire one of the many awesome outfits of Lucy Liu:


(Her character, oddly, is named "Mia Mason", even though we see her parents in the show and they're both Chinese. She does have a short conversation with an Asian guy though, about why neither of them tend to date other Asians. Seemed topical.)

The show got me thinking (sounds like an oxymoron, but true) about how jobs are portrayed on TV. I realized that TV careers are not about the work, but almost totally about relationships. Even in shows like The Wire where the intricacies of police work are examined, office politics get just as much screen time as the work itself. It's also worth noting that virtually no one on TV is bad at their job, and job performance itself is never what causes problems. Everyone, it seems, would be able to do their job perfectly if it wasn't for issues of relationships getting in the way. This is all unbelievably relevant to The Lonely Crowd's description of an "other-directed" workplace. And for once, I think that TV might actually be reporting a real trend and concern in people's lives.

At least, it's a real trend (and major concern) in my own life. In the area where I live, most people seem overqualified for their jobs, which means that almost everyone can do the actual work required of them (and probably much more). I've never had a problem with the actual work in any job I've had, unless it was that the work was too boring and repetitive. What I did have a problem with was negotiating the constantly shifting relationships of the workplace. The characters in Cashmere Mafia seem to enjoy the challenge; I break down under it. One major reason my previous job tanked was my constant stress over office politics. That stress became so great that over time, I became unable to properly do my job. There is, theoretically, an upside-- increased recognition of your work, camaraderie, mentorship. But these seem to be in short supply, whereas the capacity for needless office drama seems to be endless.

So it's only natural that people would decide to make TV shows about it. I'm realizing that just like an aromantic or perpetually single person needs to figure out how to find the relationships they do want in a structure that doesn't cater to their needs, I need to find a career where my work will be rewarded, not, as David Riesman calls it, my "glad hand". Both of those things are extremely difficult in our culture as we know it. We know they exist, somewhere, but it's getting to them that's the hard part. Romantic relationships get a lot of play, but they're not the ones we might spend forty hours a week working on. Good lord, how it all connects like crazy...

(I'll be computerless for the next two weeks or so-- comment moderation will be pretty slow, but please don't let that stop you.)

Yesterday in Biology we were discussing the immune system, and, naturally, we talked of various viruses and diseases, for without them, the immune system would be pretty pointless. Regardless, we started talking about STDs, and specifically about HPV, which, our teacher warned us, is out there and it is dangerous. And, of course, “you’ll all have sex.”

Well. Hopefully not, actually.

I hold nothing against her – few people know anything about asexuality, and it really isn’t their fault. Visibility is low for us now, and, while it will (hopefully) increase significantly in the future, ignorance is far more likely than knowledge. Instead of some kind of anger or bitterness or even resigned frustration at the assurance that, yes, we all want to have sex and we’ll all find people who want to have sex with us – rather, I was curious (intensely so) about the reactions of my classmates.

Unfortunately for me, we quickly skipped ahead to the different kinds of lymphocytes and what they did, so there was little opportunity to gauge general reaction to the insistence that we’d all one day be in danger of contracting STDs or STIs from various sexual partners, and it left me with a case of mental blue balls* that has not yet abated.

I realize that sex is, for many people, a bit of a touchy subject, and the proper treatment of it as a topic flits from universal condemnation (“you will get pregnant and die”) to infantile humor (“that’s what she said! that’s what she said! that’s what she said!”), with very little space left for frank, candid discussion, which is, really, the only kind I’m interested in. So far, I’ve only ever reached a level of comfort that would facilitate such frank discussion regarding sexual attitudes and appetites with three teenagers – one is just about as disinterested as me, another has no experience with anyone but himself, and the other has a deeply un-intellectual mindset that prevents him from really satisfactorily answering my questions. I haven’t gotten to ask any female people, and, though I have confirmation that my father was interested as a teenager (as assumed through the long Talk he gave my sister when she wanted to be alone at a boy’s house… well, alone with the boy), I know nothing of anyone else outside of my sister. It’s all terribly frustrating.

The books I read that have been written for teenagers about sex and all the attached subjects and concerns (reproductive health, birth control, pubescent development, dealing with emerging sexuality) are all read for the same reason, and are all similarly unhelpful – I want to grasp this crazy, all-consuming desire that teenagers are rumored to have. I want to know if they really do have it – I remember, for years beforehand, being told repeatedly that with puberty came a deluge of hormones and crazy, insistent desires over which I’d have no control and little understanding. Five years after menarche, I’m still waiting.

But, to be sure that I’m abnormal, I’d like to know about the experience of other teenagers, if only for the sake of comparison. Have they felt this strange new urges? Do they have sexual fantasies? Are specifically or generally sexually attracted to people, and does it naturally follow romantic attraction? Do they see a difference? Do they see the need to differentiate? Do they want to have sex – have they had sex?

These are the questions that confuse and bewilder me. I suppose my lack of understanding of what, precisely, sexual desire and sexual attraction are is testament to my “abnormality,” but even so, I feel this deep need to know how my experiences compare with others – what about how I think and how I feel is truly aberrant, and which parts are simply the anxiety of growing.

*Despite being asexual and having no practical interest in sex – the thought of engaging in it is at once kind of disgusting and deeply boring – I am otherwise fascinated with it, and many of the lighter euphemisms are remarkably funny to me, “blue balls” being such a phrase.

Dentre as coisas mais indignantes de nossa sociedade “moderna” é completa falta de integração entre pessoas com e sem deficiências de comunicação. Artigos relacionados com esse: 06/03/2010 — Desenvolvimento x Sexo – Parte II (0) 04/03/2010 — Complexo de inferioridade (0) 03/03/2010 — Dois caminhos (0)

No artigo anterior eu dei um introdução sobre o assunto mais importante aqui no site. O mito da involução sexual está impregnando em nossa sociedade… os mitos já estão tão bem concretizados que nem precisam de representante… cada pessoa faz sua pequena parte na estagnação psicológica. Mas o que há de tão louco nessa construção [...]

"This charming man..." --The Smiths

A lighter post, I hope--A few months ago, I tried to take the Eharmony.com test. I was curious if it would say I was unmatchable, because it seems like a lot of asexuals get that result. I got a few questions into the test and then gave up due to boredom. However, this hasn't stopped Eharmony from sending me periodic e-mails about dating tips. I do find them interesting to read. One was "Men-- 5 Simple Ways to Charm Your Date". I thought about the suggestions and whether or not, coming from a date, they would succeed in charming me:

1. Surprise your date with a CD of his or her favorite music.

Actually, this would probably charm me more than most other things, especially if the person took the time to make a mix...well, as long as they don't go around giving the same mix to every woman, that is...

2. Bring her one rose or a bouquet of tulips.

I'm not sure why this is even mentioned, since it's probably the least creative thing to give someone on a date.

3. Charm her with chocolate

I don't know why, but chocolate seems like a strange gift for the first few dates. And like flowers, it's pretty impersonal, unless you know you share a love of chocolate, or the topic of chocolate somehow came up.

4. Become the historian in your relationship.

Eharmony's description of this activity sounds like too much work for anyone, especially early on in the relationship when you may not be sure if you're in it for the long haul. But I'd be charmed if someone remembered anniversaries, even if they were silly ones. I do celebrate my AVENiversary, after all.

5. Be Chivalrous and gracious at all times.

Like a lot of people, I have mixed feelings about "chivalry". Personally, I'm a big fan of people being well-mannered, as I try (and sometimes fail) to be. But chivalry and etiquette are not the same. Most etiquette is gender-neutral. But chivalry is something that only flows from men to women. It has a clear history (that of medieval knights) but the meaning of its modern form is a muddled one. Can a show of chivalry really tell you where a guy stands on gender roles anymore? I kind of doubt it. Some say that chivalry died when women gained more equality, but I think this is just an unwarranted jab at feminism. A man can be supportive of traditional gender roles and at the same time, not be chivalrous at all.

And maybe I can only deal with potential chivalry from people without a sexual agenda. To me, chivalry with sexual overtones (from someone I am not attracted to) feels creepy and like the other person is just trying to run game. Same with flirting, as long as, again, I know I'm not attracted to the person in any way. I have a feeling a lot of non-asexuals might feel the same way about people they're not attracted to. For some people, chivalry is just an act and not a very convincing one. No, I'm definitely not going to be more likely to sleep with you if you pull out my chair for me.

Some wisdom on this topic comes from the dating advice of J.M. Kearns. He says, "...there is an issue that will send up quiet but important signals during your months of getting to know a new man [as a romantic prospect]. It has to do with how rigidly you each define masculinity and femininity. The two of you need to be equally flexible (or rigid) or there will be trouble" (emphasis his). I've never heard this idea explicitly mentioned anywhere else, but I think it's an extremely important one. I already feel the pressure to act "more feminine"; the last thing I'd need is even more of this pressure in a romantic relationship.

And lastly, thank goodness Sarah Haskins has targeted dating advice.

We need Science.

While there is a great deal to be said about self-discovery and the freedom to explore your own … everything without worrying about the validity of said everything is important, and awesome – but the “asexual movement” really only has one unique goal to achieve, and that’s visibility. While there are various related issues – especially those related to consent, or homoromanticism as a subset of homosexuality – that can be connected to asexuality, it isn’t the sole province of those of us who (generally) want nothing to do with sex.

And visibility relies on first telling and then gaining the acceptance of various sexual people. And people like Science. From my Very Scientific Studies*, if you add Science to your Perhaps Dubious Claims – or even to your Very Reliable Claims – you are 100% more likely to be believed, even if all you’re really doing is adding triangles to a model’s face and claiming that your special skin cream makes you look like a cyborg (but a pretty cyborg).

But real Science is even more potent (usually and/or ideally), since it is reliable and interesting and important, and, as Alfred Kinsey would tell you, research into human sexuality is not merely a fun after-category or something that can be used, when you discuss the average distance semen will travel during ejaculation, to spice up a conversation (or shut it down completely, as my AP European History classmates might tell you), but rather something deeply important to understanding humans as a whole. And, as a group that most (sexual) people may dismiss offhand (as silliness or depression or, as one troll (I’m assuming) who posts negative comments on Psychology Today’s website whenever asexuality is introduced would have it, smaller brains (no, I’m not kidding)), validation from outside of personal experience, as important as that experience is to those who share it, is absolutely crucial.

Browsing through the AVEN forums will show you that one of the most prevalent negative responses to being told that someone they know is asexual, and a comment often used by sexperts or journalists, is that such a thing – a total, or almost total, lack of desire to have sex with other people, an absence of sexual attraction, even bewilderment at how such a silly thing could be such strong motivation for so many other, sillier things – is simply not possible. I imagine this is the same kind of reaction that many gay people (before homosexuality was accepted absolutely as a possibility, even if a disgusting one, by most people) received when coming out, and the only way such a reaction can really be tamped down is through greater visibility generally, something that would benefit immeasurably from scientific backing.

The asexuality community has thus far depended almost entirely on a few small studies and general conjecture from various communities and personal experience to support their various claims, from not being repressed to not being afraid of intimacy, just sexual intimacy. While testimony can be a powerful persuasive tool, it certainly isn’t the best, and all of these claims – while probably (hopefully?) true – can’t be objectively, definitely supported because there just hasn’t been any (or not enough) research.

In the same way that studies that show homosexuality has a biological (innate) – rather than psychological (learned) – basis has given it more credence and served to discredit people who claim to be able to rehabilitate gay people from their shameful, sodomizing ways back to the having sinful thoughts about the appropriate sex**, I’m sure similar studies showing that asexuality isn’t from repression or childhood abuse or mental retardation (or what have you) would serve to silence the up-in-arms sexperts and hyper-sex-positive critics. It would really serve to hammer down the rallying cry of anyone who finds themselves othered by society – we’re not broken; we’re just different.

*Purely anecdotal evidence – but reliable anecdotal evidence!

**I’m paraphrasing

O ser humano possui um complexo de inferioridade crescente. A cada dia as pessoas se sentem mais desvalorizadas e insignificantes… Para compensar o sentimento de insignificância usamos artifícios que chamaremos de acessórios. Tais acessórios podem ser qualquer coisa, apenas precisam desempenhar o papel de valor. E não necessariamente precisa ser um valor positivo. Muitas vezes [...]

Olá amigos, antes de mais queria felicitá-los pelo site, foi realmente uma grande ajuda. Como quase todos os que vos escrevem, eu acho que sou assexual. Não me sinto só. Sou uma pessoa sociável, tenho um bom trabalho e amigos fabulosos. Tenho também uma família muito unida e protectora em que todos nos queremos muito. Os meus [...]

I think I've broken the ice.

I've been ranting about intimacy for a while now, despite the fact that it's pretty embarrassing, socially awkward and professionally detrimental. I do it because I've had this overwhelming sense for the past five years that the asexual community is onto something, that somewhere latent beneath the everyday assumptions that we make about intimacy there's this ocean of unmet need just waiting to burst out, hit oxygen and and change things.
The human need for intimacy is a deeply, deeply powerful force, from our actions as people right on up to our actions as a species. It drives everything from our family drama to our purchasing behavior to gang violence to the rise of megacities. We don't spend nearly enough time talking about it. The flippedness with which most people conflate intimacy and sex is strong evidence of that fact. And even though I've spent years ranting about it to people, I've had almost no luck getting other people to see intimacy as the fundamental, game-changing force of nature that my gut sees it as. No luck, that is, until this year.
See, a few times a year I give talks on college campuses about the asexual community, 90 minute orientations to how we work and what we stand for. Because they consist of safe, friendly and contained audiences I use these venues to test messaging that can later be delivered to the press, and in the past few months I've switched things up. Specifically I've switched up the way that I talk about intimacy in the asexual community. The results have been staggering. Twice now, multiple people in the room have gone through something akin to a shift in worldview. At a precise point in the lecture something in them shifts, and they start to view their own life experience from a new and profoundly empowering perspective. They thank me profusely and gush about how things suddenly make sense that have been murky for them for years.
It sounds egotistical to write this, and to some extent it is, but I also think I've struck a vein. The last time I got reactions like this it was the start of the asexual community. Now it's in the broader population (sex-positive undergrad students so far, but I'll have to test and see where else this model for talking about intimacy is applicable.) Here's how it works:
I open my lecture giving the definition of asexuality and talking through the specifics of our identity and our breed of sexual politics. Then I delve into three stories from the asexual community, all stories about intimacy.
The first is a story about Winter and Paul. Two asexuals from New York, Winter and Paul met when the community was just starting and meetups in Manhattan were just getting off the ground. They hit it off as fast friends, and as they spent more time together something blossomed. To people who equate intimacy with sex it might be difficult to get what exactly changed, but their relationship suddenly started to feel different. They started spending more time together, more and more of their feelings started bubbling to the surface, the plans and promises they made started creeping skyward. It made sense to call the relationship something else. After dating for a few years they got married, making them the second wedding on AVEN, and settled into a life together.
That's the first story.
The second story is about a monk named Dave. Now, Dave became a monk long before the asexual community was established, starting as a US Navy Chaplan and never looking back. He bounced between the Vatican and far-flung adventures in exotic locales, devouring life experience as avidly as he devoured books and intellectual argument. Eventually he decided to quit the church, and settled happily into the DC gay community where he applied his considerable intellectual muscle to the gay rights discussions of the day. He grew a monumental beard and got busy building himself a house with a generously proportioned library. As Dave settles into his library he'll look back across the journals from his travels, across the dog-eared books that he's spent his life tromping through and the clean, crisp ones he's still ready to devour. Dave is happy.
That's the second story.
The third story is about a girl named Ann and her punk band. Ann is in highschool, but that's ok because Ann loves punk music. She's got this band that tours regularly, and the band vibe couldn't be better. When they get together they can really tap into something, really put a part of themselves out there together and build something powerful with it. That experience trumps most of what Ann has experienced in her life so far, and the same is true for many of her band mates. They've got something. It's deep, it's powerful, and it's build relationships that are just as deep and powerful. The band is together all of the time for practice, and because of that they've become one another's support network. It's always tough to say how these things will go, but for now Ann's punk band is giving her a lot of what she needs in life.
That's the third story.
Now, the important thing to understand about these stories is that in the asexual community they're all seen as equally valid ways of getting at the same thing. The word "single" doesn't really get used in the asexual community, because it implies that if you're not in a romantic partnership with someone you're somehow isolated and your human need for intimacy isn't being fulfilled. In the asexual community you can't really be single, because it's equally valid to fulfill your need for intimacy by focusing on your relationship with yourself and the world around you, the way that Dave does, or by focusing on a close relationship with a community, the way that Ann does. Intimacy still matters. There's no getting away from our need for it, and in the asexual community we challenge ourselves vigorously to pursue it. We just don't think that romantic relationships are the only path.

At different times in our lives it makes sense to focus more on intimacy from a partner, from ourselves or from our communities, but we'll always need a little of all three. Think about these stories. Which resonates most with you and why? Does our culture value these types of intimacy differently?

I don’t have much time to blog lately because I’ve got a bunch of mid-term essays to write, but I wanted to at least pass on this link.

Last year I read Virgin by Hanne Blank (which I highly recommend) and had been trying to collect my thoughts to make a post on virginity, but that never really materialized. Basically, I am convinced that the concept of virginity, or at the very least all the emphasis on the supposed “purity” of virgins, is an archaic concept that no longer makes sense in a society with DNA testing and birth control—and especially not in a world where women are no longer considered property passed on from fathers to husbands. I should hope that we are moving towards a society where women’s choices about their bodies are valued and respected (though we are not there yet), where neither a woman’s choice to have sex NOR her choice not to have sex are something for which she is shamed.

The idea of this membrane that has two possible states—intact/unbroken or damaged/torn—and that first-time penetration inflicts a wound to the woman which can be measured in blood, is extremely problematic, and has been used as a way to sentence countless women (some of whom were undoubtedly still virgins despite the lack of blood) to slavery, imprisonment, rape, mutilation, or murder. We may want to believe that we are more civilized than to kill, maim, or torture a girl because she has lost her virginity, that this just doesn’t happen in our society and that the most that we have to contend with is slut-shaming, but here’s a news flash: in 2004, a twelve-year-old girl was forced to drink bleach by her own mother because the mother believed she had lost her virginity.

So I am all for the idea of changing the terminology we use to describe this highly misunderstood part of a woman’s anatomy. The more education there is about this, the better. And changing the name to something more accurate is bound to catch people’s attention, and allow for more widespread education about what women’s bodies are really like.

Mais uma reportagem sobre assexualidade foi publicada, agora na Folha de SP. E com ela recebemos alguns novos números sobre a sexualidade no Brasil (incluindo a assexualidade)… Ainda não tenho acesso a reportagem na integra, mas em breve ela estará disponível na página Reportagens, junto ao Guia para Pesquisas que estou elaborando para ajudar Pesquisadores, cientistas, [...]

You guys must be starting to think that I have an odd fixation on the study of loneliness. I've read Bowling Alone, skimmed The Lonely American, and am now reading the granddaddy of them all, The Lonely Crowd. It would be an especially violent act of forced optimism to deny that sometimes, it can feel lonely to be asexual. And as we've established, it can also be easy to feel lonely as a single person in a society that offers little support to you. The underlying framework of this society is what David Riesman and friends unravel in The Lonely Crowd, which doesn't really have much to do with loneliness specifically. It was written in 1961, which is obvious throughout, as you'll find many offhandedly sexist comments and references to humans as "men", for a start. However, the book seems to still be relevant today. To paraphrase what Theodore Roszak said about Freud, there seems to be no cultural norm that is too sacred for Riesman's analysis.

In the first chapter, I was thinking, "I don't know if I'll get through this". Riesman introduces quite a few terms that I'd never heard before, and he throws them at you all at once, which is a little overwhelming. Add to that a dry tone, and I was not engaged from the start. But once I got the terms figured out, the book started moving a lot faster and getting a lot more interesting. Riesman's main point seems to be that one of three social frameworks predominates in a given society, and which one predominates is based on a society's level of population growth. Explaining them all would be time-consuming (be thankful for small mercies), but what's most important to know is that in our era, we're moving (or by now, have already moved) into a "social character" (or mode of conformity) that Riesman calls "other-directed". As other-directed people, our products are our personalities and our challenge is to have them approved by others. An example of other-directed focus would be a job interview where "teamwork" and "attitude" are a lot more important than your achievements. It's not a flattering portrayal of our society. And considering there are only two other choices of "social character", neither of which seem objectively better, it's looking pretty depressing at this point. Riesman promises that in the last chapter, he'll talk about a viable alternative, "autonomy". Whether his solutions are actually workable will have to wait to be seen, until I finish the book.

Riesman has some clear opinions about sex in an other-directed society, although his comments are brief, and you don't get to them until page 145. However, I can add Riesman to my growing list of people (Michael Lerner, Gunter Schmidt, Leonore Tiefer) who relate our boring and impersonal work lives with our excitement about sex. He writes:

In this phase [of incipient population decline] there is not only a growth of leisure, but work itself becomes both less interesting and less demanding for many; increased supervision and subdivision of tasks routinize the industrial process even beyond what was accomplished in the phase of transitional growth of population. More than before, as job-mindedness declines, sex permeates the daytime as well as the playtime consciousness. (146, emphasis mine)

And if you can forgive the rhyming of the above, here is another of Riesman's thoughts on the matter:

Though there is tremendous insecurity about how the game of sex should be played, there is little doubt as to whether it should be played or not. Even when we are consciously bored with sex, we must still obey its drive. Sex, therefore, provides a kind of defense against the threat of total apathy. This is one of the reasons why so much excitement is channeled into sex by the other-directed person. He looks to it for reassurance that he is alive. (146, emphasis Riesman's)

In previous times, sex was for "production and reproduction" (146). Now, that's changed. If anything, I think it's probably easier to be asexual now than it was in past eras. However, I don't think it's a coincidence that we're called "cold", "frigid", and other adjectives that make us sound less "alive", like a body in the morgue. I also think asexuals have proved that without an excitement about sex, apathy does not reign.

O que é o valor se não um elemento subjetivo? Qual é a diferença entre o dinheiro e a beleza? Quando você entenderá que os valores são sempre pessoais? Artigos relacionados com esse: 21/02/2010 — Ambiguidade romântica (0) 06/03/2010 — Desenvolvimento x Sexo – Parte II (0) 04/03/2010 — Complexo de inferioridade (0)

Em seu coração Mora um abrigo Mas está vazio Corre perigo De onde vens? Para onde vais? O que tu tens? O que ele traz? Qual o sentido? Qual o sentido de viver? O que fazer p’ra ser feliz? Qual a noção do saber? O que o meu coração não diz É só amar, amar Cada um, por cada um É este o sentido Artigos relacionados com esse: 18/02/2010 — Eu me [...]

Originalmente eu pretendia falar, nesse artigo, sobre o mito da energia sexual, mas ao decorrer do assunto achei mais importante falar sobre o problema do desenvolvimento humano paralelo ao que chamamos de vida sexual. Um assunto que acho fundamental desde que escrevi o primeiro artigo sobre assexualidade. Mas sem mais delongas… Eu não sou pró-sexo, muito [...]

I have just recently discovered that the (published) reports of the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Workgroup for DSM-V are posted online on dsm5.org here. For readers who have do not have online access to the journals these are in (i.e. through a university library), this should now make these article accessible if you are interested.

I've provided links to the ones that I think readers may be most interested in, which includes the introduction to the series, the reports of female HSDD, Sexual Aversion Disorder, and Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (which they have proposed to merge with HSDD.)

Also, Jack Drecher's paper on "Gender Identity Disorder" was, I thought, especially interesting from a historical perspective.

Zucker KJ. Reports from the DSM-5 Work Group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2009; in press

Brotto LA. The DSM Diagnostic Criteria for Sexual Aversion Disorder. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2009; in press.

Brotto LA. The DSM Diagnostic Criteria for Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder in Women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2009; epub ahead of print.

Drescher J. Queer Diagnoses: Parallels and Contrasts in the History of Homosexuality, Gender Variance, and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2009; epub ahead of print.

Graham CA. The DSM Diagnostic Criteria for Female Sexual Arousal Disorder. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2009; in press.

On the dsm5 website, there are only two reports from this workgroup that are not presently available. For report for Sexual Masochism is not there as it has not yet been published online, but I am told it should be available any day now.

The report on male HSDD is also unavailable. The DSM5 website does not cite it, and rumor has it that this is because the article has not yet been completed.

In a post I made yesterday, I made brief reference to an editorial by Allen Frances titled Opening Pandora’s Box: The 19 Worst Suggestions For DSM5. Today, a response has been made by Kenneth Zucker, chair of the DSM-V Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Workgroup: Pandora Replies to Dr Frances, which also contains a response by Dr. Frances. They have some rather intersting things to say about the paraphilias, which I give excerpts from:

Zucker writesIn his commentary, Dr Frances (who was the editor of the DSM-IV) fails to mention the epistemological problems he created by clumsily implementing the requirement of distress and/or impairment to diagnosis a paraphilia. In the versions of the DSM prepared under Dr Frances’ supervision, a person cannot have a paraphilia unless he is distressed by that paraphilia or he is harming other people because of it. A distinct but harmless paraphilia cannot exist, by definition. A man cannot be a fetishist, for example, even if he masturbates into rubber boots on a regular basis, unless he is bothered by this behavior or is impaired in his psychosocial functioning. In DSM-IV-TR, there is no such thing as a well-adjusted paraphile; they are defined out of existence.

It is ironic that Dr Frances criticizes the wording of the proposed diagnostic criteria for the paraphilias, when the criteria prepared under his supervision contained such logical absurdities. He has often and ominously warned of future, possible “unintended consequences” of the wording details of the diagnostic criteria, but he has been strangely silent about clear errors in diagnostic criteria that should have been obvious in the DSM-IV. In order to correct this problem, the Paraphilias Subworkgroup has introduced the proposed distinction between ascertaining a Paraphilia versus diagnosing a Paraphilic Disorder. In my view, this is an extremely creative distinction that might do well in distinguishing people who have paraphilic behavior from those who have a paraphilic disorder. He had his kick at the paraphilic can and missed it.

Frances writes in his rebuttal:
I thank Dr Zucker for accurately stating my position and then illustrating it with a particularly vivid and well-chosen example. I continue to find no reason to label as mental disorder sexual urges, fantasies, or behaviors that are harmless to others and cause no distress or impairment to the individual. As psychiatrists, we have our hands full taking care of the suffering and distress caused by real mental disorders. There is no need for us to expand our purview to cover sexual thoughts and behaviors that are private and harmless.

The behaviors captured by “paraphilic coercion” and “hypersexuality” are anything but private or harmless—but that does not make them mental disorders. There is no infallible definition guiding what should, and what should not, be included in the official manual of mental disorders.

Many decisions can be tough calls. But it seems abundantly clear that these proposals from the Sexual Disorders Work Group have no place in DSM5. They offer little gain and would create significant problems. The construct “paraphilic coercion” has already contributed significantly to a grave misuse of psychiatry by the legal system in the handling of sexually violent predators—a misuse much opposed by the APA in a task force report and amicus brief to the Supreme Court.

Understanding Dr. Frances criticisms of the diagnosis "Paraphilic Coercive Disorder" requires a certain amount of background, which I intend to write about soon.