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Generational Conflicts within the AVEN Community


Pramana

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I think it's just upsetting for certain people to know they may possibly be wrong in their belief that all academics are in agreement with their opinion. As a result of this, instead of just saying 'actually yes, I can see why every academic in the world may not be in total agreement with me' they have decided instead to continue to argue about it. I'll be honest and admit that I'm just enjoying watching him get flustered which is why I'm still going :P ..I mean, this stopped being a serious discussion ages ago when he admitted he has no interest in seeing any material that may discredit some of what he says.

 

Also, where did @Sally's question go which was posted after mine? I think we were both 'legitimately' interested to hear about all the qualifications Pramana has wracked up at University. I mean, if no one else can understand any of the academic material they read based on a lack of University education, Pramana must have a super extensive uni education and a list of qualifications as long as my arm to be able to understand so much. My partner is in his third year at University studying ancient Chinese culture, history, and language, does that count? Maybe he can be my interpreter of academic documents as I'm clearly so woefully underqualified to understand anything academics say .. in comparison to Pramana's extensive list of qualifications I mean :lol:

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On 2/14/2018 at 3:51 AM, FictoVore. said:

And as I've said many times, an asexual can still potentially enjoy the physical sensations of sex (in the same way a rape victim can orgasm during an attack) without having any desire to actively seek sex out for their own pleasure. Not many asexuals do enjoy the feelings of sex, but there are those who can orgasm and still be asexual because they'd still be happiest without sex in their lives.

There are people with chronic genital pain conditions who prefer not to have sex because of those conditions: Christine Labuski, “Deferred Desire: The Asexuality of Chronic Genital Pain.” In Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, edited by Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks, 302-325. New York and  London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2014/2016.

Furthermore, your claim about asexuals preferring not to have sex is contradicted by empirical evidence:

“There were also differences in the sexual attitudes examined by the Natsal-2 survey, described below (also see Table 1). More people with an absence of sexual attraction considered their frequency of sex to be ‘about right as it is’ in contrast to the rest of the population: 76.0% versus 45.9%, respectively, among men; 65.5% versus 57.1%, respectively, among women. Only one in five men and one in 10 women reported that they would like sex either ‘much more often’ or ‘a bit more often’ among those with an absence of sexual attraction, compared to more than half of men and one in three women who did experience sexual attraction. Most of those with an absence of sexual attraction indicated that they ‘don’t have sex these days’ (53.7% men, 66.9% women), but among the 23 asexuals who had had sex in the last year, all seven men and 10 of the women reported that they either ‘always enjoy it’ or ‘enjoy it most of the time’.”

Catherine R.H. Aicken, Catherine H. Mercer, and Jackie A. Cassel, “Who Reports Absence of Sexual Attraction in Britain?: Evidence from National Probability Surveys,” Psychology & Sexuality 4, no. 2 (2013): 129.

Most importantly, you still haven't responded to the difference between internal psychological and functional output accounts, which as I've said a number of times is the crux of the matter. I referenced analytic philosopher Robin Dembroff's work before; here is the full quote:

 “A sexual-desire view of sexual orientation would not be co-extensive with my own, because ordinary dispositionalism allows sexual behavioral dispositions to have a range of categorical psychological bases (or no categorical basis), and certainly does not restrict the relevant dispositions to ones grounded in the mental states that we would categorize as “sexual desire”. For example, if someone is attracted to women on the basis of, say, a constant curiosity about what it is like to have sex with women, but not because of desire-like attitudes typically considered sexual attraction, my account does not rule out that this person can be classified as sexually women-oriented. A view of sexual orientation restricted to sexual desire (and the corresponding behavioral dispositions) would not be able to accommodate this case… But are they sufficient? Consider too the unlikely but imaginable case of someone who feels desire for, say, cisgender men, but is disposed only to sexually engage with women. In this case, and particularly for the socio-politically motivations discussed above, I would argue that this person’s sexual orientation is one of orientation toward women and not cisgender men. But I admit that intuitions about our concept’s extension may get fuzzy with regard to both of these hypotheticals — I can only report my own. I suspect that one’s response may come down to whether one tends to think about sexual orientation as something predominately action-oriented or predominately internal. But more importantly (given that this is an engineering project), I support the former view as better equipped to achieve the social and political purposes behind the concept of sexual orientation, and as not clearly in conflict with the general extension of our everyday concept.”
Robin A. Dembroff, “What Is Sexual Orientation?,” Philosophers’ Imprint 16, no. 3 (2016): 22-23.

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Janus the Fox

@Pramana and @FictoVore. (lol perfect Older Ace them with the music :P )

 

Seriously the two of you should really scientifically and pragmatically compare nots to build an actually good blog together, rather than arguing text, collaborate with something and it could be something to be desired by researchers.  PT can aid this in some way surely.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Pramana said:

There are people with chronic genital pain conditions who prefer not to have sex because of those conditions: Christine Labuski, “Deferred Desire: The Asexuality of Chronic Genital Pain.” In Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, edited by Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks, 302-325. New York and  London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2014/2016.

I spent years in support groups for women with extreme sexual pain disorders, and yes many of them actively avoided sex due to the agonizing pain involved with it. Obviously you're going to 'prefer not to have' something that will stop you being able to walk for 3 days due to just how painful it is. That doesn't mean they didn't want sex though, they wished they could have it and some were even suicidal due to just how badly they wished they could have normal, pleasurable sex (free from agonizing pain). Imagine having a vagina, and having a boiling jug of water poured inside it and over your labia and clitoris.. that's how it feels during and after sex when you have a condition like vestibulodynia or vulvodynia (which they still don't know how to treat. Some treatments work for some women, most never work). The tissue then swells up and remains red and raw for days afterwards and they can't even figure out what causes it! I figured I was lucky I didn't actively desire sex because I'd never be able to enjoy it regardless due to the pain. Sure I had to have it, so was in constant pain, but at least it wasn't something I wanted meaning I'd be having to suffer both the physical pain and the emotional pain of knowing I was physically incapable of having the pleasure I would desire. 

 

However, I am one of the women who, once I started actually desiring regular sex (around end of 2016) I realized I can orgasm anally. So I can desire all the sex I want and still get a lot out of it, without my genitals having to come into it. I am also able to masturbate, and can orgasm from doing that while giving oral or while giving a 'boob job', because I love doing both those things. Many women with sexual pain disorders don't have the luxury of being able to get off on those things though, they'd rather be given oral or penetration.. but the pain they experience from those acts can be literally SO bad that you know you don't want to have them (even though you wish you could) due to the sheer agony you'll experience during and after the sexual encounter. It's not asexuality though if you'd still desire sexual intimacy if the pain did not exist.. These women are not lacking a desire for sexual intimacy, but they ARE wanting to avoid the pain it would cause them to have penetrative sex or oral which is all they'd actually be able to orgasm from with a partner. I'm just lucky that I can enjoy (and orgasm from) things that don't involve my genitals being stimulated by another person.

 

I don't have time to discuss everything else in your comment as I'm on my way out the door. Will try to get to the rest eventually, but you must know there have also been studies done where asexuals claimed that even though they may be capable of masturbating, and some had a lot of sexual experience, they still didn't desire sex for their own pleasure. This is also claimed repeatedly in the documentary (A)sexual by many asexuals including Jay himself. Despite all that, I still don't stand by those examples as something I can wave around saying ''see I'm right!!'', it just proves that studies can have differing outcomes depending on which self-identifying asexuals have been asked, what types of questions they've been asked, and especially how they personally define sexual attraction. Many people who answer 'do you experience sexual attraction?' answer it with a different perception of what it is in their minds than what you (or I) would define it as. Studies will always be flawed, and given that even 'general' human sexuality is still not fully understood, how can you be so sure academics suddenly know 100% exactly what asexuality is? And that's if we're pretending they all hold the exact same opinion as you do, which they don't. 

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8 hours ago, FictoVore. said:

... studies can have differing outcomes depending on which self-identifying asexuals have been asked, what types of questions they've been asked, and especially how they personally define sexual attraction. Many people who answer 'do you experience sexual attraction?' answer it with a different perception of what it is in their minds than what you (or I) would define it as. ...

Exactly 👍🌸😊

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18 hours ago, Pramana said:

The vocabulary of sexual orientation may be unsuitable for all the purposes to which the concept is put within the world of identity politics.

That is the precise point many people have been arguing with you for months.

 

But... Hallelujah. Slaughter the fatted calf. The penny has dropped.

 

 

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I'm locking this for now until I can better review. 24 hours, at most. PM me with questions, please.

 

Lia

Site Comments Mod

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Re-opening this topic and moving it from Site Comments to MusiRants. Still, please remember to attack the argument, not the person. Healthy debate is good, personal insults are not :)

 

Lia

SC Mod

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