Jump to content

Questions about autochrissexuality


Lovelykat

Recommended Posts

OK, then I must be in the wrong place.

 

Asexuals who want partnered sex -- that makes no sense at all. Any normal person would call such people confused, frustrated sexuals.

Link to post
Share on other sites
3 minutes ago, asexjoe said:

OK, then I must be in the wrong place.

 

Asexuals who want partnered sex -- that makes no sense at all. Any normal person would call such people confused, frustrated sexuals.

There are prominent members in the community who identify as sex-favourable asexuals (i.e. asexuals who sometimes want partnered sex). Do you think that they're merely confused, frustrated sexuals? Does the opinion of a hypothetical "normal person" matter at all in this context? Asexuality isn't about not wanting partnered sex (a celibate person doesn't want partnered sex, after all), just as heterosexuality isn't about not wanting same sex sex. That's why orientations are defined in terms of attraction and preferences.

Link to post
Share on other sites

If one wishes to explain asexuality in terms sexual people can understand, yes, their attitudes and opinions are relevant.

 

If asexuality isn't about NOT wanting partnered sex, it will never be accepted by sexuals, and AVEN, as a project in visibility, cannot succeed.

 

I also don't buy asexuality as sexual orientation, because the two words, together, imply sexuality, which directly contradicts asexuality, which is an absence of sexuality.

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
34 minutes ago, asexjoe said:

If one wishes to explain asexuality in terms sexual people can understand, yes, their attitudes and opinions are relevant.

 

If asexuality isn't about NOT wanting partnered sex, it will never be accepted by sexuals, and AVEN, as a project in visibility, cannot succeed.

 

I also don't buy asexuality as sexual orientation, because the two words, together, imply sexuality, which directly contradicts asexuality, which is an absence of sexuality.

The problem is that if we say asexuality is the absence of sexuality, then only nonlibidoists would be asexuals, since it seems obvious that having sexual desire and masturbating is an expression of sexuality.

I realize it can be difficult to explain moderately complex concepts to the general public. In that regard, legal recognition is important for sexual minority groups, and law defines sexual orientations in terms of gender preferences, so a lack of sexual attraction definition is best suited to fit within that legitimacy conferring framework.

Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Pramana said:

The problem is that if we say asexuality is the absence of sexuality, then only nonlibidoists would be asexuals, since it seems obvious that having sexual desire and masturbating is an expression of sexuality.

I realize it can be difficult to explain moderately complex concepts to the general public. In that regard, legal recognition is important for sexual minority groups, and law defines sexual orientations in terms of gender preferences, so a lack of sexual attraction definition is best suited to fit within that legitimacy conferring framework.

Masturbation isn't an expression of anything. It's no different than defecating or brushing your teeth. It isn't indicative of desire or attraction. It's just masturbation. Even children do it..

 

If you can't even explain asexuality to an asexual, you can't explain it to the general public, the vast majority of which is sexual.

 

Asexuals are not a sexual minority group, for the same reason atheists are not a religious minority group. Asexuals do not require legal recognition or protection. They're just a bunch of people who don't want to f#ck. There's nothing complicated or complex about that.

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

How can anyone who lacks sexual attraction want partnered sex? What's the point?

 

I shall always regard these people as sexuals, as most sexuals would.

 

Also, even Wikipedia regards Anthony Bogaert as a sexuality researcher. That is his bias, and the bias of any sexologist.

Link to post
Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere

I prefer calling myself asexual and not gray-A as a way of stating that I'm about 0% open to actually having sex. No way, I'm definitely averse about such things happening to me. Plus it's not like I "feel sexual attraction very rarely or under very specific circumstances" - I just don't feel it, there is no person with whom I'd like to have sex. What makes me less than that ideal image of a "100% asexual" is not feeling some sexual attraction, but having some libido and third-person fantasies. I'm OK about it, though I too often feel like I would prefer to have no libido whatsoever.

In a way I'm torn between feeling a need to pin myself down and rejecting labels, at least to some level - I just don't trust psychology and science in general, I believe it's a reduction of the infinite diversity of experience and that literature (or generally art) and philosophy describe our inner lives much better than psychology. So: with all my distrust for labels I sometimes think I could perhaps be a sex-averse allosexual person, but I find these two aspects hard to reconcile, I don't know how it "should" feel like. But even if I was, I'd drift towards the asexual label as a shorthand for "I don't want to have sex ever, leave me in peace and stop telling me to try it". For me my own asexuality is about being averse to having sex, in a way lack of attraction is a product of this aversion, not the other way around - I strongly feel I couldn't have sex, so it just prevents any actual sexual attraction from developing.

Just to note: I haven't had any negative experiences, I just haven't had any sexual experiences whatsoever. Body issues - yes, but I don't want culture to shout at me that I need to get over it, I want to be as I am, scared of personally having sex and glad that my imperfect health liberated me from compulsory sexuality.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I could not have stated it better myself.

 

I don't want anyone marginalized by a label. It can be hard enough being asexual in a culture obsessed with sex.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

How can anyone who lacks sexual attraction want partnered sex? What's the point?

Because to some (most) people, it feels good.  Better than whatever they could achieve on their own, anyway.

 

Still doesn't mean they experience attraction.  (Which is why I think relying solely on attraction for determining sexuality is bollocks.)

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 21/07/2017 at 5:23 PM, Pramana said:

The problem is that AVEN's definition of sexual attraction is incorrect, as it it is flat out wrong according to every single academic source I've consulted on the issue, and I've consulted dozens by this point. Not experiencing sexual attraction isn't completely normal sexuality, since most people have gender preferences among various other preferences (for example being attracted to younger people and unattracted to elderly people). If you don't experience sexual attraction, then you can't tell if you're heterosexual or homosexual, for example, so I have no idea how that could be construed as completely normal sexuality. That is why psychologists would classify it as asexuality.
 

Citation needed?

People with HSDD don't desire partnered sex, but they're not asexual. I don't desire partnered sex, but I'm gray-asexual because I experience a low degree of sexual attraction.

Ok, so what is the "correct" definition of sexual attraction? (This is something I have wanted to know for years, because I have never been able to find any consistent definitions, either in the public domain or academia). (Also, since AVEN is the primary source of info on asexuality it follows that their are probably a great many people incorrectly identifying as asexual based on this incorrect info, but hey, we already knew that). Sexologist and psychologists can't even agree on definitions of terminology, or what actually constitutes sexual orientation (http://docx2.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/DefSO.pdf) , or even if everyone (particularly women) has an orientation

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24028378_What_is_Sexual_Orientation_and_Do_Women_Have_One

 

One of the essential diagnostic criteria of HSDD is distress https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7287235_Hypoactive_Sexual_Desire_Disorder_in_Menopausal_Women_A_Survey_of_Western_European_Women 

 ie. being unhappy with your lack of libido, due to the impact on your sex life, on your self esteem, etc. because the 'desire' (need to have partnered sex/lust/attraction) is still there despite the lack of 'sexual desire' (libido) (note the different uses of the term 'desire', I use the term in the as it is most commonly used in discussions on AVEN, meaning an innate need to connect with others sexually for one or many of a variety of reasons). 

 

The AIS (a measure of sexual attraction) has both questions on sexual attraction and on lack of interest in sexual activity, suggesting that the two are intertwined. Asexuals score low on the dyadic sexual desire inventory, but high on the solitary sexual desire inventory, suggesting that it is the lack of interest in partnered sex which is the defining trait. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25383584

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

The word desire is mostly commonly used as a transitive verb and the word sex, when used to describe activity, is most commonly used to mean partnered sex.

 

The circumlocution required to justify neologisms like libidoism blows my mind. I have to wonder if a brain parasite or some other pathology is behind it.

Link to post
Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere

One more correction on the issue of possible sex-averse/repulsed non-asexuals - actually, as I understand it, I believe their sex aversion would make them functionally asexual. If you are disgusted by personally engaging in sex, you can't experience full sexual attraction. Such a person could, for example, even find other people sexy, yet this attraction stops before the issue of actually wanting to have sex with that person.

That said, I'm not even sure how does sexual attraction feel like, I just don't desire sex with anyone. But maybe that's the point (my anti-psychological rebellion sets in again): what we call "sexual attraction" is just another umbrella term for different experiences of different people. Why should there be only one way to experience sexual attraction or sexual desire? Anyway, we are vastly diverse people and I just don't believe anymore that all people have similar thoughtfeelings in similar situations and everyone who doesn't is "abnormal".

 

Plus another thought on autochorissexuality vs. asexuality. In a way, Bogaerts arguments for the relationship between both are logical (thought I also think that his version of asexuality research is kinda... snoopy?). But still I'm not convinced. If someone tends to have third-person fantasies, but also desires partnered sex in real situations and doesn't identify as asexual in any way, zhe is allosexual. Who said that first-person is the only correct way to have erotic fantasies? To me such a stance feels like completely unnecessary normativity on an issue which doesn't even do harm to anyone, similar to the infamous Freudian statement that clitoral orgasms are "immature". For me the only firm connection between autochorissexuality and asexuality is the fact that asexuals who have erotic fantasies predominantly tend to experience them in third person.

Link to post
Share on other sites
2 minutes ago, Nowhere Girl said:

One more thought on the issue of possible sex-averse/repulsed non-asexuals - actually, as I understand it, I believe their sex aversion would make them functionally asexual. If you are disgusted by personally engaging in sex, you can't experience full sexual attraction. Such a person could, for example, even find other people sexy, yet this attraction stops before the issue of actually wanting to have sex with that person.

That said, I'm not even sure how does sexual attraction feel like, I just don't desire sex with anyone. But maybe that's the point (my anti-psychological rebellion sets in again): what we call "sexual attraction" is just another umbrella term for different experiences of different people. Why should there be only one way to experience sexual attraction or sexual desire? Anyway, we are vastly diverse people and I just don't believe anymore that all people have similar thoughtfeelings in similar situations and everyone who doesn't is "abnormal".

 

Plus another thought on autochorissexuality vs. asexuality. In a way, Bogaerts arguments for the relationship between both are logical (thought I also think that his version of asexuality research is kinda... snoopy?). But still I'm not convinced. If someone tends to have third-person fantasies, but also desires partnered sex in real situations and doesn't identify as asexual in any way, zhe is allosexual. Who said that first-person is the only correct way to have erotic fantasies? To me such a stance feels like completely unnecessary normativity on an issue which doesn't even do harm to anyone, similar to the infamous Freudian statement that clitoral orgasms are "immature". For me the only firm connection between autochorissexuality and asexuality is the fact that asexuals who have erotic fantasies predominantly tend to experience them in third person.

That is a very good essay.

 

I believe sexuality, and not having sexuality, has more to do with how one acts than how one feels (or how one fantasizes).

 

Someone who has made up his/her mind never to have sex, someone who cannot be seduced into having sex, is an asexual, to me.

Link to post
Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere

And I don't fully agree. Asexuality is a variant of sexuality too, it's a sexual orientation. For me it's not offensive in any way: I'm averse to having sex, but I think that sexual diversity is fascinating. From the point of view of sexual attraction, asexuality fits the scheme perfectly:

heterosexual: strong different-sex attraction, weak same-sex attraction

homosexual: strong same-sex attraction, weak different-sex attraction

bisexual: strong same-sex attraction, strong different-sex attraction

asexual: weak same-sex attraction, weak different-sex attraction

It's of course a simplification, but it's so obvious - asexuality is such an obvious missing fourth square in such schemes - that I find it incomprehensible that it took sexologists so long to acknowledge it. Only because they can't believe that it's possible not to desire sex and not to have sexual attraction.

Or, from another point of view (because the same-sex/different-sex model is problematic to transgender, and especially non-binary people):

straight women and gay men are strongly androphilic and weakly gynophilic

straight men and lesbians are stronly gynophilic and weakly androphilic

bisexuals are strongly gynophilic and strongly androphilic

asexuals are weakly gynophilic and weakly androphilic

This, too, is a simplification. For example, a colleague of mine one stated that for him "three genders are attractive: cis men, trans men and cis women". Also, from the other side: for many asexuals asexuality is more than just lack of desire, it's, in a way, a reverse desire: a desire not to engage in sex. Such issues are, in fact, highly intersectional, modified by such aspects as one's gender identity or the way one feels about having sex (favorable, indifferent, averse, repulsed). But still asexuality fits the scheme and I think that politically it's the best choice to frame it as a separate sexual orientation. The next task is to question the popular statement that 1% of the population is asexual, because I believe the percentage of people to whom it could apply well is much higher. 0,5-1% is just the percentage of people who know about asexuality and identify as such.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Only sexuals would regard asexuality as an orientation.

 

You're either asexual or you're not. You can't be both.

Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Nowhere Girl said:

The next task is to question the popular statement that 1% of the population is asexual, because I believe the percentage of people to whom it could apply well is much higher. 0,5-1% is just the percentage of people who know about asexuality and identify as such.

I think that the 1% statistic so commonly quoted actually came from a survey which didn't ask about asexuality at all but rather about experiences of sexual attraction, to which 1% replied that they had never experienced it, so that statistic isn't dependant on identification. However, it could overlook people who automatically identify with their romantic orientation without ever stopping to think whether their sexuality is similarly oriented, an issue which may be particularly relevant to women.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Accurate results will never accrue from surveys, because of the Hawthorne effect and the intense social stigma attaching to abstinence.

Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, asexjoe said:

Only sexuals would regard asexuality as an orientation.

 

You're either asexual or you're not. You can't be both.

I regard asexuality as an orientation, and I'm not sexual!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Suit yourself, Pramana. I am sorry if I seem too strident in my opinions. It appears I have already run afoul of the moderator here.

 

Feelings and emotions rule here, not a respect for communication or precision with the written word.

Link to post
Share on other sites
10 hours ago, ohdearIzzy said:

Ok, so what is the "correct" definition of sexual attraction? (This is something I have wanted to know for years, because I have never been able to find any consistent definitions, either in the public domain or academia). (Also, since AVEN is the primary source of info on asexuality it follows that their are probably a great many people incorrectly identifying as asexual based on this incorrect info, but hey, we already knew that). Sexologist and psychologists can't even agree on definitions of terminology, or what actually constitutes sexual orientation (http://docx2.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/DefSO.pdf) , or even if everyone (particularly women) has an orientation

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24028378_What_is_Sexual_Orientation_and_Do_Women_Have_One
 

The AIS (a measure of sexual attraction) has both questions on sexual attraction and on lack of interest in sexual activity, suggesting that the two are intertwined. Asexuals score low on the dyadic sexual desire inventory, but high on the solitary sexual desire inventory, suggesting that it is the lack of interest in partnered sex which is the defining trait. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25383584

 

I started a thread in The Sex Talk subforum a couple days ago summarizing research on HSDD and asexuality. I found that there is an emphasis on sexual attraction as a distinguishing feature, as both degree of low desire and lack of distress may be unreliable indicators, especially for cases of lifelong HSDD. Of course, lack of attraction often results in lack of interest in partnered sexual activity, but that doesn't mean that lack of interest in partnered sex is the distinguishing characteristic of the orientation. 

Sexual attraction is generally understood as personal qualities (such as gender, age, appearance, social status) that might evoke a desire to be sexual with people who have those qualities. There's a thread I started in Site Comments a couple months ago summarizing research that topic, if you're interested. Of course, there are going to be differences in specification between different authors, but I've found that the core idea is pretty consistent throughout the literature. As for how terms are commonly used on AVEN, I agree that AVEN is an unreliable source for research, because there is likely to be a lot of distortion when people on a forum site try to discuss a moderately complex topic. Fortunately, there seems to be a trend in recent papers towards moving away from AVEN-based studies.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Anyone researching HSDD is disqualified from researching asexuality, in my opinion. The bias is obvious.

Link to post
Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere

I don't believe in HSDD. I definitely prefer the perspective on sexual problems represented by the New View Campaign.

People deserve the right to feel unlike others. They deserve the right to have their problems (or even "the right to be unhappy", as in Huxley's "Brave New World") and to deal with them using their own methods. From the mainstream point of view I surely have some dysfunction because I can't even undress in front of another person. Yet I don't feel any distress because of this condition ("condition" in a philosophical, not medical meaning), I wouldn't like to change it and this should be decisive.

Do you see how somewhat more progressive sexologists (those who acknowledge asexuality) and even parts of the asexual community seem to give the "right" not to feel sexual attraction to asexuals - but not to others? This is a double standard. Everyone has a right not to feel sexual attraction, not to be interested in sex, not to have sex for any reason, without the precondition that zhe identifies as asexual or, for example, "waiting until marriage" or "waiting for True Love". The best solution is not to demarcate asexuality vs. "HSDD", but to question the idea of sexual dysfunctions as such.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yes, I sure agree with that. Partnered sex isn't necessary for mental or physical health.

 

I agree with your last paragraph, too. I hesitate to advertise my disinterest in sex because of the predictable reactions among sexuals.

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Nowhere Girl said:

I don't believe in HSDD. I definitely prefer the perspective on sexual problems represented by the New View Campaign.

People deserve the right to feel unlike others. They deserve the right to have their problems (or even "the right to be unhappy", as in Huxley's "Brave New World") and to deal with them using their own methods. From the mainstream point of view I surely have some dysfunction because I can't even undress in front of another person. Yet I don't feel any distress because of this condition ("condition" in a philosophical, not medical meaning), I wouldn't like to change it and this should be decisive.

Do you see how somewhat more progressive sexologists (those who acknowledge asexuality) and even parts of the asexual community seem to give the "right" not to feel sexual attraction to asexuals - but not to others? This is a double standard. Everyone has a right not to feel sexual attraction, not to be interested in sex, not to have sex for any reason, without the precondition that zhe identifies as asexual or, for example, "waiting until marriage" or "waiting for True Love". The best solution is not to demarcate asexuality vs. "HSDD", but to question the idea of sexual dysfunctions as such.

I think you might be interested in feminist/queer theory writing on asexuality, which focuses heavily on criticizing HSDD. If you're interested, there're some notes on that in the thread I started recently on HSDD in The Sex Talk forum, and more detail in a thread called Feminist Asexuality that I started in Asexual Musings and Rantings back in May. For what it's worth, I think those criticisms have some merit, although I might not go as far as the authors discussed.

I also dislike undressing around other people, and am perfectly happy with feeling that way. I agree that asexuality as an identity and community is partly about challenging assumptions whereby sexuality is the norm and lack of sexual interest is a dysfunction.

I'm not sure what you mean, though, when you say that non-asexuals can also lack sexual attraction? Doesn't there have to be some difference between asexuals and sexuals? Feminists/queer theory authors sometimes use the term "pre-asexual" to describe people who don't experience sexual attraction but who have adopted an asexual identity. But they're still not saying that sexual people can lack sexual attraction.

Link to post
Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere

I just have doubts about how is it possible to be non-asexual and sex-repulsed. As I consider it, sex repulsion precludes experiencing full sexual attraction - such a person could find someone sexy, but couldn't want to have sex with them. That would make this theoretic group functionally asexual. That's what I meant.

And please, could you give some links to those texts you mentioned? I don't want to look for them all over the forum...

Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Nowhere Girl said:

I just have doubts about how is it possible to be non-asexual and sex-repulsed. As I consider it, sex repulsion precludes experiencing full sexual attraction - such a person could find someone sexy, but couldn't want to have sex with them. That would make this theoretic group functionally asexual. That's what I meant.

And please, could you give some links to those texts you mentioned? I don't want to look for them all over the forum...

I consider myself gray-asexual because I experience low levels of sexual attraction while being sex-repulsed. I have encountered others in the community who do the same, but uses of terminology and interpretations of personal experience may vary. My feeling is that it's more of a conflicted experience, whereby one force is operative but is counteracted by another.

Here are the links:

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere

I just had to quote something from the latter:

Quote

The ‘Born This Way’ defence fails to adequately challenge heteronormativity. Rather than establish homosexuality as a form of human experience equal in worth to heterosexuality, its claim to the validity of homosexuality is based solely on the premise that homosexuals are unable to be heterosexuals.

Just what I always say. And that's also why I believe we have to accept queer people - including asexuals - who claim that they were NOT born this way. I don't think I was, I became asexual early, but wasn't born ace. And identifying as asexual instead of "dysfunctional" is Pure Choice.

Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Nowhere Girl said:

I just had to quote something from the latter:

Just what I always say. And that's also why I believe we have to accept queer people - including asexuals - who claim that they were NOT born this way. I don't think I was, I became asexual early, but wasn't born ace. And identifying as asexual instead of "dysfunctional" is Pure Choice.

If you're interested in a longer read, there's an essay I posted which discusses that issue in more detail:
 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/21/2017 at 2:23 PM, ohdearIzzy said:

I'm very much in the "enough with the labels!!!!" camp, the vast majority of silly "orientation" labels people (mainly teenagers) come up with are completely unnecessary, because they describe variations in perfectly average sexuality (or asexuality),

Well i think they are too much complex to try to define yourself with them bc its very specific vocabulary and people won't understand you. And if they don't understand you where's the point of communication. But i like labels bc they make people feel understood and its really pleasant to know there's an specific word for what u are feeling and a whole community behind.

 

On 7/21/2017 at 2:23 PM, ohdearIzzy said:

"I'm pan" would be a perfectly sufficient answer in your example

Well you are simplifying there. Since not all pans are polyamorous nor autochoris. So if you can simplify all this labels under the pan spectrum why can't i simply another set of different labels into the asexual's one?

 

On 7/21/2017 at 2:23 PM, ohdearIzzy said:

Asexuality isn't a convenient label for anyone who's orientation or preferences are a little complex to adopt in order to make life easy.

WRROOOOOOOOOOOOOONNGGGG. It depends on the case. If you are trying to look for a partner maybe it's not the most convenient bc people will think u are not interested. But for me for example, it is. I can feel different kind of attraction to all genders with preference to boy and perform sexual activities on my own and be aroused by sexual explicit content and fantasized but i dont want at all the real thing bc ewwwww gross. In my case, it's much better to say im asexual, than to say: well, im a specific kind of asexual, libidoist asexual in fact, that sometimes blabla and i can blabla but i would never have sex with u. Don't you think? That way i make people aware im not interested in sex not relationships and i don't have to tell them all my private life and what i do in my alone time.

 

 

To make all the labels simple, i sort them in 4 big groups: hetero, gay, bi/pan and ace. All labels, or at least most, can be sorted into those. And they are much simple to explain than explaining every detail. From those four, the one i match the most is ace. There can be obviously panromantic asexuals, those should decide if they rather highlight they like all genders or they are not interested in sex while choosing a group. There might be ace panros who rather be called asexual and others who rather be called pans. That's their priority and nobody but them can choose for them.

 

Btw, nice example the one of the penguin. But it is a really good argument for transphobes, a little close-minded. I mean, you are right, i can identify like a penguin and still be a human. But.... same can transphobe say about "you can identify as a women all you want, but you have a fucking penis so you are a fucking male, you have XY chromosomes you can't change that, but keep saying whatever u want, i identify as an attack helicopter". And you know, it may be true somehow, but thats called HATE SPEECH. There's no need for you to say it, you just say it for other people to feel bad. And those things make some people fall in depression, have identity crisis and kill themselves. The penguin example is really stupid, but actually it will depend in the definition you gave to penguin. Maybe if we compare DNA we found out we are 60% penguins.

 

Idk if you are transphobe or not, but hate speech is useless, it brings nothing but harm and its totally unnecessary. It's obvious and we all know that, apparently, boys have dicks, but if a girl (understanding girl with someone with vagina) feels uncomfortable with her body and want to be a boy, leave him alone!! We all know he doesn't have a dick, we don't need that one moron highlighting it. It's his life and you have no right to tell him what to do, its not your business. So please, do not invalidate anyone's sexuality just bc u don't like it or you don't agree. Bc once again, you are not them, and you dont know what they've been through. It's easy to criticize, but try to live a day in their shoes.

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/18/2017 at 1:23 AM, Pramana said:

1. The term autochorissexual was coined by psychologist Anthony Bogaert to refer to people who fantasize in the third person, without incorporating themselves into their fantasies. By his interpretation, autochorissexuals lack the subjective component of sexual attraction. For most people, sexual fantasies often serve as scripts for sexual roles they would potentially like to fulfill in real life, but for autochorisssexuals that is not the case. Because Bogaert thinks autochorissexuals only have a partial experience of sexual attraction, he classifies them as a type of asexual (in contrast to gray-asexuals, who have rare and/or weak experiences of sexual attraction albeit in a complete form ). That said, some autochorissexuals may prefer to call themselves gray-asexual, and I think a reasonable argument could be made for that alternative characterization.

3. From your description, it sounds like you could be autochorissexual. There is also one other recognized subcategory of asexual that I think might be relevant. Alongside discussions of autochorissexuality, psychologists sometimes discuss asexuals who use sexual imagery to aid sexual arousal, while lacking the mental element of sexual attraction/desire. Therefore, while an autochorissexual lacks only the subjective component of sexual attraction (doesn't include themselves in their fantasies, but still fantasizes about attractive people), this type of asexual lacks both the subjective and objective components of sexual attraction (finds there's a physiological response to viewing sexual imagery, but doesn't find the people attractive).

Pramana, I was trying to understand your terminology.  I've also read the studies by Brotto and colleagues, where they use subjective/non-subjective:

"Might asexuality represent another dimension on which orientation is based, such that subjective falls at one end (e.g., the individual with a sense of identity as a sexual agent) and non-subjective falls at the other end (e.g., the autochorissexual who experiences a complete identity less sexuality). Within such a spectrum, this would account for the experiences of Gray As, who experience sexual attraction some of the time, and for demisexuals, who experience sexual attraction only after developing a strong romantic attraction towards a particular individual" (Brotto & Yule, 2016).

 

I'm not sure that your interpretation in terms both subjective and objective sexual attraction is the same thing.  Brotto and Yule say that it's one dimension, on the one end you've got people who experience subjective sexuality (they have a sense of identity as a sexual agent, i.e. alllosexual).  On the other end you've got people with non-subjective sexuality (autochorissexuals, who lack a subjective sense of identity as a sexual agent).  In between you have demisexuals and Gray As.

 

I also wanted to challenge the idea that autochorissexuals have a "partial experience of sexual attraction".  Autochorissexuals lack subjective sexual attraction, which means that they don't feel the sexual attraction that allosexuals do. 

 

Here's the original quote from Bogaert: "these individuals [autchorissexuals] still seem to retain a lack of subjective sexual attraction to others (or anything), despite physical arousal and seeking out persistent themes in fantasy and pornography. Subjective in this case refers to the I or the me in one’s identity as a person. Moreover, it might be argued that asexual people’s bodies (or more correctly, aspects of their nervous systems related to arousal) have a ‘‘sexual orientation’’ of sorts, but they themselves, or their identities, do not."

 

So, the nervous system (i.e. libido) of can find people attractive, but autochorissexuals themselves do not.  I think what you're calling objective sexual attraction is really libido.  And yes, autochorissexuals have a libido, but they don't experience sexual attraction in the conventional sense.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...