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Trav's Asexuality article TAKE 2 (the PUBLISHED one)


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Asexuality

Travis Seppala

806 words

Jessica Bull is an 18-year-old high school student from Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. Like most teens, she hears about sex… a lot!

Her friends talk about their sexual encounters, and what boys they think are hot, and she has to endure catcalls from the guys. Jessica, however does not partake in these conversations.

“For two to three months I was exploring my sexuality and trying to find where I fit in the world,” she recalls. “But nothing I came up with felt right. I realized why the different sexualities didn’t quite fit. I wasn’t interested in sex.”

It was then that, while on the Internet, Jessica came across The Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) at www.asexuality.org.

AVEN was created in 2001 by a man named David Jay (now 22 years old). He went through much the same thing as Jessica. According to him, “Everyone was discussing sex and sexuality, and I just couldn’t relate.”

Jay began looking for information on his unique situation – one where he simply did not find anyone sexually attractive, and he had no desire to be with anyone sexually. All he could find was information about plants, amoebas and worms reproducing without the use of sexual intercourse; a term called asexual reproduction.

Jay, however, was not reproducing asexually. However, the term asexual seemed to fit right. He was not sexual, after all, and since “a” can be used as a pre-fix meaning not, the term asexual stuck.

The only information on humans having no sex drive was found in a medical journal of mental disorders. The term used was “Hypoactive Sexual Desire,” in which a person had little or no sex drive and hence doesn’t find people of either gender to be sexually attractive.

Nicole Prause, a graduate student at Indiana University who is studying the topic says that it is not, however a disease. “People are using it as a sexual orientation,” she says.

David Jay decided that there must be others like him, and he went to work in founding AVEN. The homepage announces, “Asexual: A person who does not experience sexual attraction.”

Jay’s idea was to get information about asexuality out to the public. “While sexual people are shown a multitude of ways to live a life which involves sex, most asexual people find very little information on how to live life without it. We (AVEN) provide a safe space for asexual people to discuss our experiences in our online forum, and actively organize for the recognition and acceptance of asexuality.”

Thanks to AVEN, Jessica was able to discover that there was not only a term for her lack of sexual desire or sexual attraction to others (since she could now identify herself as being asexual), she found that she’s not alone.

“There are millions of asexuals scattered about the planet,” says Geraldin Levi, co-founder of The Asexual Society (www.theofficialasexualsociety.com).

In fact, a sex study performed by Anthony Bogaert, a psychologist and human sexuality expert, shows that as much as one percent of the population is asexual. That’s 70,000,000 asexuals! This number is almost as high as the three percent that are homosexual.

Many people think asexuality is merely celibacy. This is, however, a misconception. The difference is that celibate people choose to refrain from sex, asexuals have no desire for it what so ever.

Not all asexuals are young people, even though it’s a fairly new sexual orientation. Nancy is a 51 year old asexual, and she says she began identifying herself as such as early as 1970.

So, do asexuals date? David Jay says, “Some form romantic intimate relationships, some do not.” Many do, however, and some even marry. Nancy, for instance has been married for the past 6 years. She and her husband do not engage in sexual activity, and she says he’s fine with it. The same can be said of 23-year old Esther Dail who informed her husband of her asexuality when they were still dating. She says, “He doesn’t push me to have sex.”

So, yes, there are people out there who have no interest in sex, even in this vastly sexual world in which we live. They are there in great numbers. So why haven’t we heard of them until now? There’s not much information about it outside of online asexual communities. For this reason, many people who might be asexual aren’t likely to come across the information or even the term. They may go on being sexual (straight, gay or bi) because they don’t know there’s another alternative.

Perhaps soon, they will. New Scientist magazine made the statement, “If asexuality is indeed a form of sexual orientation, perhaps it will not be long before the issue of ‘A’ pride starts attracting more attention.”

For most asexuals, this is the plan! “But I don’t think we need a parade,” stated David Jay.

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Just moving this one to World Watch for now too.

Amcan

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