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Asexual men?


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Hey hey,

I got a question for the guys here. I'd like to write something about Ace men, but since I'm not one I got problems with it some and would appreciate your help. As in last years survey we could see there are a lot fewer men on this website than women and I mean exactly those two binary genders for this purpose. For Trans folk I have made a different post and will still. Anyway, in last years survey there were fewer men than women, which can be deduced that perhaps fewer men come out as Aces and I have some idea on what difficulties they face, but I still don¨t know why. COuld it be that there jsut are fewer Ace men, which I don¨t really think, but then why is it so?

If you could help me understand a little I¨d be very grateful. If anything I have written sounded off, I am sorry, but I¨d like to get it right and not insult anyone there and here and give accurate information.

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I thinking for the most part we are raised to feel like we need to get married and pop off some kids. At least where I'm from that is the mentality and if you don't express any interest towards girls they will label you as gay, which isn't the case for me and in my community can draw.a lot of negative attention. Growing up around straight friends I always assumed that I was the same, but just not as good with being a ladies man.

I think many men just feel like maybe we aren't good with girls, and that must be what is going in. I don't think many of them realize that this orientation even exists, and as I had said it kind of goes against everything society (US) teaches us as being a man.

So yeah, I think we do exist in equal numbers but women probably are less shamed into admitting that they are asexual, since they normally are the ones who have more control when it comes to choosing partners. Us men are just kind of expected to run around flailing our arms about wildly while trying to have sex with anything that moves, or so our society tells us we are.

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I do agree with what marki said, society pushes men to feel proud of how much sex they are getting, or how potent they are as a symbol of fertility or something. There's hardly any stigma on men for ever being "too" sexual while not having enough of it, or not being interested enough can have some shaming elements from others.

Besides the societal elements, I think there is a biological/chemical element... I mean, the male hormone is what makes people seek out sex. (Ok don't quote me on that I'm not well versed in biology or chemistry :P)

Another strong point I think - this might be TMI for some - having sex is really easy for men, most men don't need much effort to get it going and it's not like it's their body that gets invaded [sorry if that's controversial].... On average men reach orgasm quicker and more easily...

It's also possible that if a female has troubles reaching orgasm people will tell her to "look it up". If a man was to ask the same question (although that'd be super rare already) he'd probably just be told to "try to have some more"

All these combined make it so that women are most likely to feel like the way they feel does not conform to what media/society tells them it should be like... and that I think is the reason why cis-females are more likely to look up asexuality than cis-males.

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WheelCuddle

I am 31 years old. Today is the one week anniversary of discovering my asexuality. I have had sex and had many relationships, before accepting the truth about myself, after a lot of confusion and anquish in my life. I felt a strong desire to "be a man," society floods men with images of masculinity and expectations. I first had sex at 18 because I needed to prove my manhood as an adult. I could not concieve of a way to be close to anyone, and to feel normal, without having sex. I thought sex was the only way to express my desire to love someone, the only way anyone would stick around. After all, who could possibly be satisfied without sex? Even though I struggled with it, I cannot stress how much it did not occur to me that I shouldn't, or didn't have to do these things. I see now very clearly I developed a straight persona, someone loud, confident, bold, and interested in sex. it was only when I came to terms with my asexuality that I realised that persona wasn't even me.

So how did I make the discovery? Completely by accident! I was complaining to a friend about how broken I was sexually, how it seemed i was having difficulty with everyone i tried to be with, and how would this new dating go, if i was going to drive them away by my lack of performance? My friend helpfully suggested I try to find an asexual, they don't want sex, so i wouldn't feel such pressure. What was an asexual? I had no idea! but as I learned I realized exactly what I've always been. I learned that it is actually possible to love someone and express that love without ever having sex. I learned that there are women out there who can accept me exactly as I am, and still want to spend their lives with me.

My point is, had my friend not made such a suggestion I would have never discovered asexuality. I would have never thought to question the relationship between sex and intimacy. Had that conversation never happened I would STILL be trying to attain some straight happiness and failing, and never finding the root cause.

I suspect there are a lot of men still trapped in their own idea of what it means to be a man, and how men are supposed to express themselves.

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TheButterflyComposer

Funnily enough I have only ever met asexual men, any asexuals in fiction are invariably male and most high profile asexuals are also male...and yet this OP is completely correct in that men have trouble with asexuality identification and there are a lot 'fewer' of us out there.

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Whoa, great responses already.

Picking up on what marki said: in terms of GROSS GENERALITIES and STEREOTYPES (which, emphatic disclaimer, I don't subscribe to at all!), my impression is that women are sort of assumed to be biromantic demisexuals to begin with. One of the big deals of the women's liberation movement in the 70s was women claiming the right to identify as sexual people in the first place, and have society recognize them as such. The vestiges of those prehistoric ideas about women persist in the culture, such that there's this (gradually collapsing, but persistent) assumption that women, with some exceptions, are basically demisexual. So, based on the stereotype, women already start out a lot closer to the asexual end of the spectrum, so there's sort of less 'distance' for women to get to an asexual identification.

Conversely, the stereotype assumes all men to be hypersexual heterosexuals (with a few hypersexual gay men in the mix), so we have to go through some process of completely uprooting the assumptions to get to an asexual identity. And then, at least in my experience, even while uprooting the assumptions it was really easy to miss the target! I knew I wasn't heterosexual, but not being sexual was not even a concept when I was forming my sexual identity (late 80s to early 90s), so I picked the closest available match to what I felt and identified as bisexual. This went on for 20-odd years. It never really felt right to me, but it was the closest available thing to what I experienced.

And then, similar to WheelCuddle, it took a complete accident for me to even learn about asexuality. A random comment on a completely unrelated blog alerted me to the concept, and I joined AVEN that day. :) If that hadn't happened, I would still be bi, just with a mystifying lack of capacity to initiate sex.

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To all who contributed I'd like to thank again and if you'd like to see the post you can always find it on here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Asexuality-Awareness/866744936741473

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Another strong point I think - this might be TMI for some - having sex is really easy for men, most men don't need much effort to get it going and it's not like it's their body that gets invaded [sorry if that's controversial].... On average men reach orgasm quicker and more easily...

Maybe if you're libidoist, yeah.

I on the other hand went a pretty long time in my life wondering if it would even be possible to father a kid because the concept of arousal remained a mystery to me until I was nearly 29. Even then, whatever sort of arousal I can experience still works only very situationally and isn't something that I seem to be able to trigger on my own.

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Lord Jade Cross

I dont know if men necessaryly have a higher sex drive than women. I think that this is one factor that may just be blown out of proportion to keep a certain image about them. Similar to how women can last more than men in sex but will often keep it hush hush so as not to hit the male ego.

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andreas1033

Of course there is enormous peer pressures. No man really likes to admit they have no interest in sex, as they are laughed at and ridiculed. But i do not care, and i have always been open about it.

But to say your asexual as a man, society in some ways thinks your less of a man.

I do not care, as i never related to what society thinks of as male anyway, and i do not care about being laughed at, as i learnt that most know nout, so they are only laughing at there own ignorance.

So i think it comes down to males not wanting to admit they have no interest in sex implies they are less of a male.

There is a taboo to saying your asexual if your male.

Like i said, i do not care.

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I think it is more about how society general think men need to be sexually active. Like it is status to have had much sex and so on, even in sex ed we were thaught that mean have much mor sexual desire than women and that sex and mastubratin race through their minds evey day. It is, in my opinion, just more shameful to be a man that is not heteronormative than lets say a woman.

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Are most women really demisexual or is it just a steotypical assumption?

It's a stereotype. Women are so often told that that's how they should be and that they shouldn't even enjoy sex, that that's only for men.

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The Void Walker

Our society is hyper-masculine. If we are anything less than obsessed with sex, we are told that there is something wrong with us.
So instead of accepting it, we are more likely to hide it, or act like it doesn't exist.

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I don't think I'd get many positive responses if I randomly told people I'm a virgin. I personally don't care if I stay a virgin for life, but it sucks when people make character judgements about me because of it. It's something that limits me to how open I can be with other people. Why is it something that should even matter?

As to why there are so few asexual men? My guess is societal peer pressure, which I can personally attest to.

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Blue Phoenix Ace

I can attest to the societal pressures theory. It's definitely not cool to be a male Ace. Having sex is part of what gives a man his worth. I'm not sure if women feel the same pressures to have sex or not (since I'm not one!). Are there any ladies who can chime in on this?

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Lord Jade Cross

I have to agree. There is a possibility that there are more asexual men than the percentage we may have now, but pretty much as being openly gay was still cause for social indignation/margination/ridicule/shame and an array of other things even as early as 15 years ago, because it clashed with social ideals, asexual men, who would possibly pose a bigger threat to the hyper sexualized society, will choose to lay low out of fear, shame or just not wanting to deal with the stigma they would receive.

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Autumn Season

I can attest to the societal pressures theory. It's definitely not cool to be a male Ace. Having sex is part of what gives a man his worth. I'm not sure if women feel the same pressures to have sex or not (since I'm not one!). Are there any ladies who can chime in on this?

Kind of. Personally, I am not experiencing the pressure to desire or enjoy sex. But I am expected to "give" to my partner. Actually, this is frustrating.

Somebody once told me that "men always want (sex) and women always can (have sex - because of the different organs, not because they have it easier finding somebody)". This sums up the prejudices very nicely.

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I personally think the main reason there are more female asexuals than male asexuals is biological in nature, although there is no real way of knowing for sure.

Secondly, I think AVEN caters more to females than males (probably because there are simply more of them). If you browse around places like Off-A, you'll realize there really isn't very much interest in stereotypically masculine things (with the exception of maybe sci-fi/video game type stuff which I'm not really sure would be considered masculine anymore). It's kind of interesting that all the asexuals I have known/met outside of asexual communities have been male. When asked about AVEN, the majority of them simply said they simply didn't find the site interesting.

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What's always confused me is this : people to place more values on females not having had sex (they are considered good girls) but if a male has not had sex, they are thought to be gay. This is weird (and hypocritical) to me, but apparently normal to some people's thought process.

I can attest to the societal pressures theory. It's definitely not cool to be a male Ace. Having sex is part of what gives a man his worth. I'm not sure if women feel the same pressures to have sex or not (since I'm not one!). Are there any ladies who can chime in on this?

I do not feel pressured, but I was also raised in a house that valued sexual purity. Media would probably have an influence on pressuring girls, though. I wouldn't really know, I was never affected by it, but I do notice that TV and movies seem to have no problem with half naked women drooling over a "hot" (what does that even mean?) guy.

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Somebody once told me that "men always want (sex) and women always can (have sex - because of the different organs, not because they have it easier finding somebody)". This sums up the prejudices very nicely.

Actually, I think very often when people say something like that, the implication is that women always "can" have sex because there always will be a willing male. Whereas females are more "choosy" so males are not afforded that same luxury.

Whether or not this is actually true in practice, I have no idea. But I'm sure this is a very common belief.

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Autumn Season
Somebody once told me that "men always want (sex) and women always can (have sex - because of the different organs, not because they have it easier finding somebody)". This sums up the prejudices very nicely.

Actually, I think very often when people say something like that, the implication is that women always "can" have sex because there always will be a willing male. Whereas females are more "choosy" so males are not afforded that same luxury.

Whether or not this is actually true in practice, I have no idea. But I'm sure this is a very common belief.

The context in which this joke was told to me implied that it was about the male and female sex organs. But I'm sure it can be used in the context you mentioned as well.

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:redface: it's possible it's easier to compromise as an ace person equipped with male parts, than as one equipped with female ones

How is this true, exactly?

I ask this honestly, because I spent the vast majority of my life wondering how someone like me would even be able to have sex, because it seemed like it would be rather impossible for males to do without physical arousal, and that was something that just simply escaped me. Is that something that's just that easy for (nearly) everyone else besides me? :huh:

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WheelCuddle

:redface: it's possible it's easier to compromise as an ace person equipped with male parts, than as one equipped with female ones

:unsure: also there is the thing where "yes all women" and that might make it more common for women to be sex-repulsed.

I am just throwing out ideas tho, you'd need to have a survey to make any hypothesis. and you'd need to have more surveys, to challenge that hypothesis. and stuff. *science*

I don't agree with this at all. as a woman you only need to be lubricated, which can easily be accomplished externally, a few drops of a lubricant would work. A male has to achieve and maintain an erection, which is a lot more difficult to do. Granted there are pumps and pills and such, but i hardly think that is easier. I speak from experience of years of straight relationships, and failing to perform sexually.

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Autumn Season

Maybe men feel responsible for the way the sex feels. If it doesn't feel good, they think they need to work harder?

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Maybe men feel responsible for the way the sex feels. If it doesn't feel good, they think they need to work harder?

I suppose that's true, often times sex is represented as something the man enjoys and the female just puts up with it. So if a man wants to be considerate about it and not focus solely on himself, then he'd want to try to make it better for the woman.

I also second what Teagan said, being dmab, guy friends are open about discussing masturbation and no one ever complained that it wasn't satisfying, but when female friends have talked about it (which is a rare occurence) it is usually to express some concern or that it takes too long

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