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Participants needed for a study on asexuality and sexual fantasy


Notte stellata

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Notte stellata

Dr. Lori Brotto and Morag Yule at the University of British Columbia are conducting a study on asexuality and sexual fantasy. By filling out a series of online questionnaires, you can help researchers better understand sexual fantasy in asexual individuals. The study is completely confidential, and there is an opportunity to win one of two $50 gift certificates for completing it! It is hoped that the data from this study will help to further our understanding of asexuality in general, and will impact the greater community to decrease stigma associated with asexuality. Please take some time to help out with this important research! We value everyone's responses and experiences, and people of all sexual orientations are invited to participate.

Here is the link to the study: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SexualFantasy

This study has been approved for posting by the AVEN Project Team.

starrynight

Project Team

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Sage Raven Domino

Done! :cake:

It was a bit hard to understand the scope of their use of the word 'sexual', i.e. to distinguish the times when they meant partnered sex from the times when they meant masturbation or arousal as well. Also, I equated aesthetically attractive / 'good-looking' people to 'sexually attractive' throughout the survey as I supposed that the (presumably) sexually positive researchers have hardly any distinction between aesthetic and sexual attraction.

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Sage Raven Domino

Well, it looks like these researchers mainly deal with sexuals' fears of intercourse (pregnancy, STIs, voyeurism) in their work, so it looks quite natural that they've included a lot of questions about them into the survey. It's not really tailored to asexuals.

Fwiw, the survey was quite relevant to me because, just before I started identifying as asexual, my hypothesis was that my reason for not wanting sex was a particular set of fears, and I even discussed ways to overcome it with a counselor.

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the question "I go to great lengths to avoid situations where sex might be expected of me" is cracking me up xD

I guess I just don't ever find myself in such a situation

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Sage Raven Domino

Think of staying alone in an elevator with a very aesthetically attractive human who's flirting with you and might press the 'Stop' button so that you two get stuck and they can start undressing you. Would you apply martial arts to that person if you saw them reaching out to the control panel of the elevator? Would you spring out of the elevator as soon as it opens even if it wasn't on your target store? Would you avoid being alone in an elevator with an aesthetically attractive human at all?

In Russia (I don't know about more civilised countries), there are special couchettes in some sleeper trains that allow booking only by people of the same gender. Though it's not a very sexual situation, intergender relationships do often start in trains, and certainly people change clothes before going to sleep and some of them feel uncomfortable doing it in the couchette when a person of the opposite gender is present (the lavatory, where they could do it alone, is often either closed or occupied).

Just yesterday, I read about Minsk hostels, and it turns out that rooms are generally mixed-gender, but there's sometimes a room where only females are allowed because the presence of males in nearby beds would make some of them too embarrassed, while some of them are totally fine with males and don't mind sleeping in a mixed-gender room.

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Done.

Are there really people who fantasize about being raped?! Or did I simply misunderstand some of the questions?

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Notte stellata

Are there really people who fantasize about being raped?! Or did I simply misunderstand some of the questions?

It's actually a quite common fantasy. What I've heard is they enjoy the idea of being physically overpowered.

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Done! :cake:

It was a bit hard to understand the scope of their use of the word 'sexual', i.e. to distinguish the times when they meant partnered sex from the times when they meant masturbation or arousal as well. Also, I equated aesthetically attractive / 'good-looking' people to 'sexually attractive' throughout the survey as I supposed that the (presumably) sexually positive researchers have hardly any distinction between aesthetic and sexual attraction.

I think they edited this to distinguish between masturbation and partnered sex since the time you took it.

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Done.

Are there really people who fantasize about being raped?! Or did I simply misunderstand some of the questions?

It's actually been found to be a very common fantasy among women. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean

I never truly understood that fetish either. I'm assuming that some aces can have that fetish too, right?

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This question asks two things, making answers to in unreliable. "I am not afraid of kissing or petting but intercourse really scares me." True to the first, false to the last for me. But if it were False to the first for anyone, their answers would be incomprehensible. Also, completed. A bit too mant repeat questions, but otherwise fine. I really liked that the binary gender choice was worder as "which best describes you".

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This question asks two things, making answers to in unreliable. "I am not afraid of kissing or petting but intercourse really scares me." True to the first, false to the last for me. But if it were False to the first for anyone, their answers would be incomprehensible. Also, completed. A bit too mant repeat questions, but otherwise fine. I really liked that the binary gender choice was worder as "which best describes you".

I agree. Some of the answers would nullify other responses, so you had to be extremely careful on how you responded, thus making the study a bit more complicated.

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So one questions was a bit weird..."When I feel sexually aroused, I usually have an erection." Is there a difference? I mean isn't an erection the same thing as arousal?

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I discovered that a number of lecturers at my university are also interested in asexuality and are focusing on it, it's such a great feeling to know that we're being explored in an academic context.

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Done.

Are there really people who fantasize about being raped?! Or did I simply misunderstand some of the questions?

It's actually been found to be a very common fantasy among women. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean

Thanks for the link! I never knew. This whole thing is pretty hard for me to understand, but well ...

Done.

Are there really people who fantasize about being raped?! Or did I simply misunderstand some of the questions?

It's actually been found to be a very common fantasy among women. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean

I never truly understood that fetish either. I'm assuming that some aces can have that fetish too, right?

Yeah, I guess.

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I discovered that a number of lecturers at my university are also interested in asexuality and are focusing on it, it's such a great feeling to know that we're being explored in an academic context.

I'm potentially getting one of them to supervise an asexuality project, which they new nothing about before. It is a nice feeling. (Which probably makes us thinking this an outlier among movements, as it seems to be the common opinion here; its even in the mission statement, I think.)

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So one questions was a bit weird..."When I feel sexually aroused, I usually have an erection." Is there a difference? I mean isn't an erection the same thing as arousal?

I believe if one had E.D. one might have trouble getting an erection. There were a few questions like that in the female's bit (e.g., "When I feel sexually aroused, I usually find that I am naturally lubricated," or something like that).

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Done.

Are there really people who fantasize about being raped?! Or did I simply misunderstand some of the questions?

It's actually been found to be a very common fantasy among women. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean

I never truly understood that fetish either. I'm assuming that some aces can have that fetish too, right?

Yes, definitely. Though I feel I should say that the people who do have this fetish (that aren't stupid) realize that it's just a fantasy, and that they don't want the "real deal."

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Asterion Orestes

So one questions was a bit weird..."When I feel sexually aroused, I usually have an erection." Is there a difference? I mean isn't an erection the same thing as arousal?

I believe if one had E.D. one might have trouble getting an erection. There were a few questions like that in the female's bit (e.g., "When I feel sexually aroused, I usually find that I am naturally lubricated," or something like that).

Erection is reported to commonly occur during REM sleep & seems unrelated to dream content.

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Done.

Are there really people who fantasize about being raped?! Or did I simply misunderstand some of the questions?

It's actually been found to be a very common fantasy among women. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean

I never truly understood that fetish either. I'm assuming that some aces can have that fetish too, right?

Done.

Are there really people who fantasize about being raped?! Or did I simply misunderstand some of the questions?

It's actually been found to be a very common fantasy among women. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean

Thanks for the link! I never knew. This whole thing is pretty hard for me to understand, but well ...

Done.

Are there really people who fantasize about being raped?! Or did I simply misunderstand some of the questions?

It's actually been found to be a very common fantasy among women. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean

I never truly understood that fetish either. I'm assuming that some aces can have that fetish too, right?

Yeah, I guess.

I have a feeling that aces could have fantasies about non-consensual sex, yes. I don't think it's a "fetish" necessarily, at least not for most people. It is a sexual fantasy for most, I believe. It's a way to indulge in thoughts and curiosities about the act of sex without putting yourself in the position of active desire. I think in a lot of cases with women these fantasies happen because women are socialized that fantasizing about sex is "dirty" and "wrong" and so having fantasies about non-consensual situations is a way of giving themselves permission.

Here is a personal account of this. (It is a woman talking about her sexual life and fantasies. It isn't graphic, but it is direct. You have been warned.): http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2011/11/the-purity-culture-and-sexual-dysfunction.html

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Lyodor Tolstoyevski

Okay guys, help a newbie out. I'm getting tripped up right at the beginning, and it's a little embarrassing.

"Which option best describes your sexual orientation?"

Some discussion with a friend yesterday lead to the label "heteroromantic demisexual" being agreed upon for me, and right now that's what makes sense to me. For the purposes of this particular question, would that make me asexual or straight? There's always "other," but I'm not confident in my ability to describe it.

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Okay guys, help a newbie out. I'm getting tripped up right at the beginning, and it's a little embarrassing.

"Which option best describes your sexual orientation?"

Some discussion with a friend yesterday lead to the label "heteroromantic demisexual" being agreed upon for me, and right now that's what makes sense to me. For the purposes of this particular question, would that make me asexual or straight? There's always "other," but I'm not confident in my ability to describe it.

Demisexual would lie on the asexual spectrum, so I would assume yes. But I'm not sure what the researcher's intent is.

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