Generational Conflicts within the AVEN Community

[Tarfeather]

@FictoVore. Okay, that makes sense. It's essentially prejudice and stereotype, but that kind of thing can actually be useful as a heuristic to get along better in life, so I'm not going to criticize it.

[Rhaenys]

Personally I'm an old soul who finds it hard to take anyone below 21 seriously so I have a more "you do you" approach but I'm not gonna be able to remember and know the meaning of all these new labels. But if you're coming here with identifying as a dragonsexual or <insertsomefictionalcharacteroractor>sexual without trollish intentions (tumblr is a hell of a site ppl.) then I'm sorry. 😂

 

I take the What does it matter approach cause right now I'm like 3 different labels.

1.) Asexual (if you wanna get specific female ace, poc ace, ace with a disorder, sex indifferent it goes on.)

2.) Autochorissexual or however that's spelt

3.) Biromantic

4.) Demiromantic

 

Wtf am I ? imo asexuality encompasses those three.

[Janus the Fox]

With the bigger picture, it isn't a big deal, but on the smaller scale, sexuality is still big aspects of a persons identity.  For what we can do small as individuals, becomes the bigger picture.

[Pramana]

On 2/10/2018 at 2:58 PM, Snao Cone said:

I think it's constructive and positive to tell young questioning asexuals not to pigeonhole themselves. You seem to think it's a matter of gatekeeping. It's not. It's about being helpful towards people who are at a point of uncertainty, and reassuring them that they shouldn't sweat it if they discover something different.

Some variations of the pigeonholing argument present the matter as though adolescents might prematurely identify as asexual, only to develop sexual desires shortly thereafter, and then refuse to act on those desires causing psychological damage. That type of concern strikes me as implausible, and unsupported by empirical evidence.

[Telecaster68]

5 hours ago, Pramana said:

Some variations of the pigeonholing argument present the matter as though adolescents might prematurely identify as asexual, only to develop sexual desires shortly thereafter, and then refuse to act on those desires causing psychological damage. That type of concern strikes me as implausible, and unsupported by empirical evidence.

It strikes me, based on experience, and on posts here, that there is enough evidence that this is very plausible. What is your evidence to the contrary?

[Guest]

On 2/11/2018 at 9:09 PM, Tarfeather said:

@FictoVore.It's essentially prejudice and stereotype

No it's this thing called.. wait wait, what's the word?? Oh that's right, Life

 

If you're a straight man and a guy asks you out on a date are you just going to smile and go along with it, or let him know you're not gay? ..Most straight men would kindly let the man know that they're not gay, but hey if you'd act differently in that situation then good for you!

[Sally]

What's plausible, and in fact I've seen several posts mentioning it, is that a very young person (teen) will decide they're asexual, tell their friends that, and then in a few years realize that they're not asexual, and are embarassed about feeling like they should explain that to their friends.  

[Telecaster68]

Exactly. It's not just the embarrassment either. Someone that age who labels themselves asexual, or any of the multitude of other labels, is doing it as party of figuring out their own identity. It's a well established part of teenage development.

 

What's also well established is cognitive dissonance: we have an image of ourselves, and if new experiences don't fit with that image (as a good person, someone who likes sport, someone with no interest in sex etc), we need to resolve that dissonance by changing either or established identity, or the thing that doesn't conform. If a core part of the established identity is that it's 'unchangeable', then the external thing has to change. In this case, it would mean someone who's inherently sexual twisting and warping their ideas about what asexuality involves so they can fit themselves into it; or changing their behaviour to fit the external idea. Neither is going to make for a happy person.

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

Exactly. It's not just the embarrassment either. Someone that age who labels themselves asexual, or any of the multitude of other labels, is doing it as party of figuring out their own identity. It's a well established part of teenage development.

 

What's also well established is cognitive dissonance: we have an image of ourselves, and if new experiences don't fit with that image (as a good person, someone who likes sport, someone with no interest in sex etc), we need to resolve that dissonance by changing either or established identity, or the thing that doesn't conform. If a core part of the established identity is that it's 'unchangeable', then the external thing has to change. In this case, it would mean someone who's inherently sexual twisting and warping their ideas about what asexuality involves so they can fit themselves into it; or changing their behaviour to fit the external idea. Neither is going to make for a happy person.

It wouldn't really be SUCH an issue if asexuality was defined accurately for a start, and if this community provided clear information explaining that it can take a while to develop interest in sex as a teen. My 17 year old brother STILL only has pics of Einstein and Tesla on his walls, plays videogames instead of going to parties, and blocks girls on Facebook who try to flirt with him because he finds it annoying. That doesn't automatically mean he's ace because it's totally normal for some teens to develop that interest later than others. There's this expectation around here that the moment you hit puberty you'll be gagging for sex and if you're not like that then you're ace, but it's just not like that for a lot of people. Something else that can be quite normal is not knowing if you're gay or straight and needing some time to work that out. I've known a lot of people who had to experiment a bit with relationships and sex etc before truly coming to an understanding of what their sexual orientation is in their late teens or early twenties (and that can be even later for some people). At least with gay or straight though everyone automatically knows that means you either desire sexual intimacy and relationships with men, or with women.. but even then it can STILL take a while to figure out despite everyone having a clear understanding of what those things mean (same with bisexual too of course).

 

Then you get asexuality that 1) everyone in the ace community defines differently depending on their personal opinion of what sexual attraction is, 2) is not properly defined by the website that claims to be the leading education resource for asexuality (their true official stance is 'anyone who wants to be ace is ace) and 3) (which is something Pramana does not explain in ANY of his posts about current ace research as far as I know) ...Not even the 'experts' (who just seem to be blindly stumbling around in the dark if you ask me) can agree upon how to define it. Boegart himself claims in his book that he just goes with the sexual attraction definition because he 'likes it the best' and he feels that the sexual desire definition may lead people to believe that asexuals don't masturbate, but he's very open about the fact that different researchers do define it differently depending on the results and methods etc in their own personal studies (and how they interpret each other's studies!). There are certainly studies out there which conclude that a lack of desire to connect sexually with others is probably the best way to define asexuality for accuracy, and even some medical/psychiatric resources that do define asexuality very clearly as a lack of desire to connect sexually with others (and they use that term interchangeably with the term 'no sexual attraction'). There's certainly not a consensus in the scientific community as to how asexuality should be accurately defined (which is why you need to ignore the blathering scientific community and look at what REAL PEOPLE with actual experience having to deal with asexuality and sexuality on a daily basis - sexuals and their ace partners - experience as a direct result of asexuality. It becomes very clear, very fast, what asexuality is in those circumstances!!)

 

All these factors combined show why it can be such a minefield if you begin to ID as asexual from a young age. Sure an 'actual' asexual will be ace regardless of what age they are, but most kids are 'functionally asexual' by default anyway and that can, sometimes, take quite a while to change. 

 

AVEN would save a lot of people lot of confusion (and humiliation, isolation,and alienation) if they were just OPEN and honest about all this instead of sticking to the SJW, anti-education stance of "you're asexual if you want to be!!"

[Guest]

23 hours ago, Rhaenys said:

poc ace

Does that mean like,you're only ace for non-white people or what?

[Telecaster68]

1 hour ago, FictoVore. said:

most kids are 'functionally asexual' by default

And yet I've seen so many posts saying people knew they were asexual because they didn't feel sexually attracted to anyone when they were seven.

 

Neither do sexuals. All children are anatomically,  psychologically and neurologically asexual. 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

All children are anatomically,  psychologically and neurologically asexual. 

Yeah and that's just a fact. But not to everyone apparently.. there's a particular member who has been posting in the froums recently that all children are sexual beings ergo pedophilia isn't that bad and wouldn't effect kids so negatively if adults weren't so 'uptight' about the issue.. they've now started PMing me about it too (I guess because they can be more aggressive in PM without everyone seeing the extent of their pedophile apologist attitude?) despite my clear disdain for the topic T_T 

 

That was a totally off topic rant sorry, but it's true that children are functionally asexual, even IF they're able to masturbate. Masturbation, even the ability to reach orgasm, does NOT make someone physically 'sexually mature' if they haven't reached puberty yet (and even when they've reached puberty, kids still aren't mentally or emotionally ready for sex and often don't get to that place until their late teens or even later). Apparently some people just can't wrap their heads around this fact though Y_Y 

 

And yes, it does cause issues with asexual identification when you get 13 year olds here saying they've never been 'sexually attracted' to anyone even when they have a crush, so they MUST be asexual. It's not the kid's fault though, the issue lies with all the adults here who insist that yes, the kid must be asexual. *sigh*

[TheAP]

Nobody is saying the kid MUST be asexual. They're saying that it's okay to identify as asexual for the time being, even if it may change later on.

[Pramana]

5 hours ago, FictoVore. said:

Boegart himself claims in his book that he just goes with the sexual attraction definition because he 'likes it the best' and he feels that the sexual desire definition may lead people to believe that asexuals don't masturbate, but he's very open about the fact that different researchers do define it differently depending on the results and methods etc in their own personal studies (and how they interpret each other's studies!). There are certainly studies out there which conclude that a lack of desire to connect sexually with others is probably the best way to define asexuality for accuracy, and even some medical/psychiatric resources that do define asexuality very clearly as a lack of desire to connect sexually with others (and they use that term interchangeably with the term 'no sexual attraction'). There's certainly not a consensus in the scientific community as to how asexuality should be accurately defined (which is why you need to ignore the blathering scientific community and look at what REAL PEOPLE with actual experience having to deal with asexuality and sexuality on a daily basis - sexuals and their ace partners - experience as a direct result of asexuality. It becomes very clear, very fast, what asexuality is in those circumstances!!)

I've read essentially every study on asexuality published in English, so I can say with confidence that this doesn't exist. So either:
1. You haven't actually read any studies. What studies have you read, by the way?
2. You've read studies, but in the absence of reading comprehension.

All of the major people publishing on asexuality (including sexual and asexual academics) today use the sexual attraction definition. Doing so follows evolutionary psychology theory, where a consensus has emerged that sexual attraction provides the psychological core of sexual orientation. I'm also not sure if you understand what is meant by "connect sexually with other people" in this context. As another way of stating sexual desires/feelings for others, it is the same as sexual attraction. However, it is possible to enjoy/desire sex with other people without sexually connecting oneself to those people. I know this because I personally asked one of the leading asexuality researchers about this point specifically. Also, consider the persistent curiosity example I articulated recently, where the desire is for sex to satisfy personal curiosity, rather than to satisfy a desire for sexual connection with others.

The central point is that provided asexuality is defined as an internal psychological state, then there will always be people who desire sex outside their orientation. The basic logic is that different internal processes can have the same behavioural output, and the same behavioural output can result from different internal processes. That is a logical/methodological stricture, and so it isn't going to change with future empirical research.

[Telecaster68]

48 minutes ago, Pramana said:

Really, are we going to be hearing interviews from 50 year old people, commiserating about how they prematurely identified as "lithsexual" at 13, and ruined their life through forgoing sex for 4 decades?

Poor,  Pramana, very poor. 

[Homer]

3 hours ago, TheAP said:

Nobody is saying the kid MUST be asexual. They're saying that it's okay to identify as asexual for the time being, even if it may change later on.

Which brings me to the question: WHY is it so important to "label" yourself some way or other at such an early age? I don't get it.

 

Edit: This might actually be a generational kind of thing. When we were 13 or so, we'd have laughed at the idea of "labelling" ourselves, but that was 20+ years ago.

[TheAP]

29 minutes ago, Homer said:

Which brings me to the question: WHY is it so important to "label" yourself some way or other at such an early age? I don't get it.

I don't think it is, necessarily. It's okay to be unsure and to not use labels. But we shouldn't put down those that choose to, or stop them from doing so.

[Homer]

There is no way to stop them anyway, even if one tried.

[Pramana]

15 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

It strikes me, based on experience, and on posts here, that there is enough evidence that this is very plausible. What is your evidence to the contrary?

Really, are we going to be hearing interviews from 50 year old people, commiserating about how they prematurely identified as "lithsexual" at 13, and ruined their life through forgoing sex for 4 decades?
 

42 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Poor,  Pramana, very poor. 

Maybe in a few decades people will start coming forward about how they were horribly mislead by an asexuality website, causing lasting psychological damage. More realistically, there's potential that adolescents might misidentify for six months. That is a usual part of identity formation. Oddly, it seems that older people are more likely to be bothered by young people misidentifying than the young people themselves.

[Telecaster68]

Repeating your strawman doesn't make it any less asinine. 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Pramana said:

I've read essentially every study on asexuality published in English, so I can say with confidence that this doesn't exist. 

 

1) Bogaert actually said that about the definition in a passage that you yourself quoted here once. But yes I just re-read his book (Understanding Asexuality) recently and interestingly enough, the words haven't changed.. they still say the same thing

 

2) ...I think you should be careful when stating something categorically doesn't exist, as yofu clearly haven't read all the studies or you'd know exactly what I'm talking about.

 

3) While MANY use the sexual attraction definition, what I'm saying is that the way that's defined is not in any way agreed upon. Many professionals use the term interchangeably with terms like 'lack of motivation to have sex with other people'.

 

I'm possibly prepared to take a few hours out of my day (at some point) compiling a post of the studies and some of the books that I have read, with screencaps from the text itself so people don't have to go hunting through pages and pages of research notes and medical jargan to get to the point.. Yes, I'd do this despite the fact that the 'asexuality researchers' are blathering around blindly in the dark with no idea as to what they're really talking about. The ONLY reason I would do this is to prove to you that there are researchers out there who don't necessarily adhere to the 'sexual attraction' definition (or at the very least, the way it's interpreted by you), and there are also medical professionals who define asexuality as a lack of desire for partnered sexual intimacy. I can also link screencaps of the passage where Bogaert specifically states the only reason that he doesn't like the 'desire' definition is because it implies that asexuals do not masturbate (which is not how it's actually intended to be interpreted. 'Desire' supporters make it clear that it's a lack of desire for sexual activity with others that counts here). Bogaert also states that there are differing  opinions in the academic community as to how to define asexuality and gives his reasoning as to why he personally prefers the sexual attraction definition. He's not categorically stating though that there is agreement within the academic community that asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction, or even how that necessarily should be defined. He also specifically states in the same passage that he prefers the sexual attraction definition because some studies suggest that asexuality isn't necessarily a lack of desire for sexual activity, but a lack of desire for sexual activity with others (which is NO DIFFERENT than what any 'desire' supporter here believes). 

 

Now, I would do all this, despite my disdain for the vast majority of academic theory as to what asexuality is and is not (because that's all most of it is, THEORIES that don't hold up when you talk to sexual people about their own sexual experiences and motivations behind why they choose certain sexual partners etc) but I'll only do it IF you'll actually READ what I post instead of just completely ignoring it as you have done so many other times in the past when anyone has provided you with evidence of differing opinions within the scientific community (because the scientific community is literally all you care about when it comes to these discussions). Most of us here aren't interested in debating the scientific literature on this topic because we already KNOW the answers that researchers and academics are struggling to figure out. We've been here, we've lived it. We prefer to talk about actual real world experience instead of debating what researchers (who all clearly have personal biases) have written over the years. But yeah, if you will actually READ it and, once I've shown you proof, if you'll be open to the idea that yes there is definitely not a consensus in the scientific community as to exactly how asexuality should be defined (or even what it is exactly) I'll link the material that I have.

 

You don't have to say you AGREE with anything I post (as I disagree with the vast majority of the research studies that you post) but you'll need to wake up to the idea that not all researchers or medical/psychiatric professionals have the exact same view as to what asexuality is as you do, and often when they use the term sexual attraction they are using that term to mean things like 'lack of personal motivation to have sex with others for pleasure' and  'a lack of desire for others' (which is clearly explained not as 'having sex for pleasure with people you don't desire' the way you interpret it, but instead as 'having no interest/motivation in having sexual activity with other people for pleasure'). Yes I'll link you the name of books where this is discussed and screencap the appropriate pages so everyone can see without having to buy the books (which as they're aimed at medical professionals, cost an arm and a leg). Certain researchers are also very open to the fact that a lot more research into asexuality is required before any conclusive answers can be reached.

 

Every time you post a research paper that proves your personal interpretation of asexuality, you need to be aware that there actually are papers (and other material) out there that says something quite different. So it will only ever come down to an argument of which researchers are more correct which is a pointless discussion. The people with the most experience will always be on the side of the 'lack of desire to connect sexually with others for pleasure' definition, because it's the only one that is truly applicable in real life. But yeah, you don't have to agree with anything I post, you just need to be more open to the idea that there are professionals out there who say exactly the same things about asexuality as what the 'desire definition' supporters on here on AVEN are promoting.

 

5 hours ago, Pramana said:

. However, it is possible to enjoy/desire sex with other people without sexually connecting oneself to those people. I know this because I personally asked one of the leading asexuality researchers about this point specifically.

I know it too!! Do you know why I know it? Because there are plenty of sexual people out there doing just that! Not all sexual people only choose sexual partners who they feel a particular sexual connection to. Yes, that's common, but it's certainly not always the case. 

 

5 hours ago, Pramana said:

consider the persistent curiosity example I articulated recently, where the desire is for sex to satisfy personal curiosity, rather than to satisfy a desire for sexual connection with others.

Yeah again, sexual people have this. So do some asexual people. If you're an asexual but you're having sex out of curiosity to try to see what it's like, if maybe there's some ways you can get real enjoyment out of it etc (in the hopes of discovering you're not actually asexual, which is really common around here) then that's not someone who is seeking out partnered sex specifically for the sexual and/or emotional pleasure it will bring them, it's someone who is trying to work out their sexual orientation which many people do regardless of whether they're gay, straight, bi, or asexual. 

[StormySky]

I feel like this is less of a fault of AVEN and more of an individual identity crisis as a result of being too attatched to a label.

[Pramana]

2 hours ago, FictoVore. said:

 

1) Bogaert actually said that about the definition in a passage that you yourself quoted here once. But yes I just re-read his book (Understanding Asexuality) recently and interestingly enough, the words haven't changed.. they still say the same thing

 

2) ...I think you should be careful when stating something categorically doesn't exist, as you clearly haven't read all the studies or you'd know exactly what I'm talking about.

 

3) While MAY use the sexual attraction definition, what I'm saying is that the way that's defined is not in any way agreed upon. Many professionals use the term interchangeably with terms like 'lack of motivation to have sex with other people'.

Sexual attraction is a complex construct, commonly defined as sexual desires or sexual feelings for other people, or more formally as a type of sexual desire attached to concepts about other people. Sexual attraction can therefore be operationalized in terms of sexual preferences that lead one to react to desirable sexual targets by forming sexual feelings for them, or in terms of being motivated towards sexual interaction with sexually desirable targets. I recall that around this time last year there was a lot of hairsplitting on AVEN about sexual attraction versus innate desire for partnered sex, which was the result of confusion about that aspect.

There's also research measuring sexual arousability/excitability among asexuals, which finds lower levels compared to sexual control groups. A limitation of the research so far is that it hasn't properly distinguished between nonlibidoist and libiodist asexuals. However, asexuals are most reliably distinguished from sexuals on the dyadic subscale of the Sexual Desire Inventory (SDI). Low scores on the dyadic subscale of the SDI are found to correlate with high scores on the new Asexuality Identification Scale (AIS) designed to measure lack of sexual attraction.

Now it's generally assumed that people who lack the psychological state represented by dyadic sexual desires/sexual attraction will usually lack interest in partnered sex. But, as I described elsewhere, there are other factors which could potentially lead people to display a pattern of desiring partnered sex for intrinsic goods. The persistent curiosity example is my favourite for illustrating this point.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Pramana said:

Sexual attraction is a complex construct, commonly defined as sexual desires or sexual feelings for other people, or more formally as a type of sexual desire attached to concepts about other people. Sexual attraction can therefore be operationalized in terms of sexual preferences that lead one to react to desirable sexual targets by forming sexual feelings for them, or in terms of being motivated towards sexual interaction with sexually desirable targets. I recall that around this time last year there was a lot of hairsplitting on AVEN about sexual attraction versus innate desire for partnered sex, which was the result of confusion about that aspect.

There's also research measuring sexual arousability/excitability among asexuals, which finds lower levels compared to sexual control groups. A limitation of the research so far is that it hasn't properly distinguished between nonlibidoist and libiodist asexuals. However, asexuals are most reliably distinguished from sexuals on the dyadic subscale of the Sexual Desire Inventory (SDI). Low scores on the dyadic subscale of the SDI are found to correlate with high scores on the new Asexuality Identification Scale (AIS) designed to measure lack of sexual attraction.

Now it's generally assumed that people who lack the psychological state represented by dyadic sexual desires/sexual attraction will usually lack interest in partnered sex. But, as I described elsewhere, there are other factors which could potentially lead people to display a pattern of desiring partnered sex for intrinsic goods. The persistent curiosity example is my favourite for illustrating this point.

So do you want to see some of the academic and medical literature where asexuality is described as a lack of desire to connect sexually with others or not?

 

Also, being curious about sex to work out your sexual orientation is one thing. Being so curious about it that you keep continuously seeking it out with many different people because you're 'curious' about all the different types of sex you can explore and enjoy etc is just a regular sexual person who loves exploring different aspects of sex and sexuality. I'm not sure how exactly you're defining 'curious' here, but it's very common for some asexuals to be curious enough about sex that they try it, as many think maybe they're not ace and they need to have sex to know one way or another. But yeah, that's very different than a 'sexual explorer' who just wants to have and enjoy all that every different kind of sex has to offer.

[Pramana]

On 2/12/2018 at 11:32 PM, FictoVore. said:

So do you want to see some of the academic and medical literature where asexuality is described as a lack of desire to connect sexually with others or not?

 

Also, being curious about sex to work out your sexual orientation is one thing. Being so curious about it that you keep continuously seeking it out with many different people because you're 'curious' about all the different types of sex you can explore and enjoy etc is just a regular sexual person who loves exploring different aspects of sex and sexuality. I'm not sure how exactly you're defining 'curious' here, but it's very common for some asexuals to be curious enough about sex that they try it, as many think maybe they're not ace and they need to have sex to know one way or another. But yeah, that's very different than a 'sexual explorer' who just wants to have and enjoy all that every different kind of sex has to offer.

No, you're still not understanding the concepts. Psychological accounts ground sexual orientations in a particular psychological state (sexual attraction/sexual desires for others) because following evolutionary psychology the capacity to experience that state is theorized to have evolved to orientate mammals towards advantageous reproductive targets. Desiring a lot of sex due to a persistent curiosity describes a different psychological motivator than that which is used to define orientation.

Consider the indistinguishability of variables problem here. We've accepted that an asexual might desire at least some sex to satisfy curiosity. At what point does an asexual who becomes progressively more curious about sex become sexual?

The significance of the persistent curiosity example is to show that if we ground sexual orientations in psychological states then we have to accept the possibility of preferred behaviour patterns which are orthogonal to those typically associated with the orientation. Or we have to switch to a fundamentally different way of defining orientations, grounded in dispositions/functional outputs. For reference: Robin A. Dembroff, “What Is Sexual Orientation?,” Philosophers’ Imprint 16:3 (2016): 1–27.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Pramana said:

We've accepted that an asexual might desire at least some sex to satisfy curiosity. 

 No, we didn't accept that at all. I was saying (as do some academics) that an asexual may deseire alternative reasons for having sex that have nothing to do with sexual satisfaction. 'Trying to work out your sexual orientation' is one of those reasons. There are many, many asexuals on AVEN who will tell you that when they had 'curiosity sex' they got nothing out of it and it confirmed to them that they're definitely asexual. If you get enough out of it that you actively desire to keep having it for enjoyment then you've actually found  out that you're not, in fact, asexual. Trying to figure out your sexual orientation, having sex to make a baby, having sex to try to look 'normal', these are all things some asexuals do but that doesn't mean they're desiring sexual intimacy for their own sexual and/or emotional pleasure in the way sexual people most often have sex (sexuals can of course have sex they don't want, sex to punish themselves, sex to get money.. all sorts of things not involving active desire for sexual pleasure itself, but that's a different topic).

 

I'm assuming you don't want to see the literature where academics (the kind with PhDs) say that asexuals can have sex for alterior motivations but not because they intrinsically desire partnered sex for their own pleasure. That's fine if you don't want to see it. I can understand it would be frustrating having to admit you're wrong about there being consensus in the academic community as to what asexuality actually is, and it would be frustrating knowing there are people who have PHDs who define asexuality differently than you do. Saves me a few hours of compiling research and a very long comment that, knowing my luck on AVEN, will completely fail to post to the forums and will disappear somewhere into the deep dark forest of lost AVEN posts.

[Cobie]

 

 

Quote

... there are differing  opinions in the academic community as to how to define asexuality ...

 

Quote

... academic theory as to what asexuality is and is not ... most of it is, THEORIES ...

 

Quote

... Most of us here aren't interested in debating the scientific literature on this topic ...

 

... prefer to talk about actual real world experience ...

 

I agree with that 👍

 

(2nd bold my highlighting)

(I don’t know why it does not have the heading of the post I quoted from. 🤔. The quotes are from @FictoVore.   https://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/167389-generational-conflicts-within-the-aven-community/?do=findComment&comment=1062694519. )

 

 

[Cobie]

8 hours ago, FictoVore. said:

So do you want to see some of the academic and medical literature where asexuality is described as a lack of desire to connect sexually with others ...

An excellent offer, and very generous with your time. 

 

8 hours ago, Pramana said:

No, ...

😂🤣😅. I always skip posts by Pramana, I find them so not constructive 

 

[Chimeric]

16 hours ago, TheAP said:

Nobody is saying the kid MUST be asexual. They're saying that it's okay to identify as asexual for the time being, even if it may change later on.

This is true, but the issue is, in my active time here, there have been multiple posts by young people who identified as asexual who suddenly find they aren't, and are in distress about that - to the point where they want to medicate their libido away. I'm sure there are underlying issues there, but when I start telling 13, 14, 15 year olds (or their mothers) that they may very well still be within the realm of regular ol' sexual, I catch snide remarks. 

14 hours ago, Homer said:

 

Edit: This might actually be a generational kind of thing. When we were 13 or so, we'd have laughed at the idea of "labelling" ourselves, but that was 20+ years ago.

I think it may be. When I was 13 the only labels we had were "punk," "prep," and "jock" and the biggest outcry from anyone who was labeled was "don't label me." It is weird that society has done such a 180.

 

23 minutes ago, Thea2 said:

 

 

😂 I always skip posts by Pramana, I find them so not constructive 🤣

 

Pramana is intelligent, articulate, and well-educated. You're doing yourself a disservice. 

[Haze.]

15 hours ago, Homer said:

Which brings me to the question: WHY is it so important to "label" yourself some way or other at such an early age? I don't get it.

 

Edit: This might actually be a generational kind of thing. When we were 13 or so, we'd have laughed at the idea of "labelling" ourselves, but that was 20+ years ago.

On the last statement specifically— I wish labels weren’t important at my age. But, at least in my community, ever since I was 14 or so, it’s been a big deal. Practically every one of my peers asks about labels and expects people to have some kind of label. If you don’t state one, people start labelling you for you. There is a lot of societal pressure among teenagers of every age to label themselves. I agree that there is probably a generational discrepancy. 

 

Disclaimer: This response is based on my experience with my peers. This may not be applicable everywhere.