HAVE YOU ALWAYS BEEN ASEXUAL ?

[R_1]

18 hours ago, James121 said:

That’s what happens to old people. They lose their desire because of hormonal changes that affect their desire.

 

Now this makes no sense to me. For example, if someone loses their sight and it won’t come back, do future biographical details show likeness to ‘you were born this way’? No. I don’t get what you mean!

Hormones does not explain younger individuals who lost desire permanently. And asexuals aren't significantly different than allosexuals regarding hormones.

 

What I mean is that over time, one who has lost sight will become indistinguishable from born-blind, and age does influence whether their life might be more similar than different.

[Guest]

When I was in my teens I thought I might be asexual but as I got older I realised that it just comes down to attraction and I haven't met someone I'm attracted to yet so it always has seemed like I'm asexual.

[James121]

On 4/15/2019 at 7:08 PM, R_1 said:

Hormones does not explain younger individuals who lost desire permanently.

Why not? 

Hormones can dictate how our body’s change in other ways so it seems logical that they could reduce our libido altogether.

 

 

[R_1]

12 minutes ago, James121 said:

Why not? 

Hormones can dictate how our body’s change in other ways so it seems logical that they could reduce our libido altogether.

 

 

It can in some cases, but it alone doesn't explain sexuality loss in every cases. My libido has not changed, and my hormones is normal. So, in my case, it just a matter of sexuality going bleep. Me finding out is just not consistent with my life story.

[lost female soul]

I was not always at least I don’t think so.  My life has been so confusing as I was abused at a young age.  I was sexualized at age 3 or 4.   People think I’ve never had a boyfriend.  Wow if they only knew.  That part of me had a gradual decline and then became absent.  I wrote asexual on my paperwork at the healthcare place.  They gave me a label of low libido.  Not exactly.  There is no box for me in any which way.  I’m me and trying to be okay with my true self on so many levels.  My parents wanted a boy child.  I was born female and feel female.  They even dressed me in boys clothes and cut my hair short every chance they got.  Too toxic. Anyway I’m sensitive, so they put me in judo, when I wanted ballet.  This was to make me tougher, but it didn’t work and I eventually got ballet many years later.  Perhaps I was always asexual.  I have no clue.  I’m an old lady now.  People say it’s not true, but it’s never too late to find my truth and happiness.

[James121]

9 minutes ago, R_1 said:

It can in some cases, but it alone doesn't explain sexuality loss in every cases. My libido has not changed, and my hormones is normal. So, in my case, it just a matter of sexuality going bleep. Me finding out is just not consistent with my life story.

But in the case of the original post, they said they liked and enjoyed sex and grew/evolved in to asexuality. That’s where I dispute that it can be considered asexuality because we do not evolve in to being of a different sexual orientation. We are x, y or z. I could never evolve in to being gay for example. Gays can’t evolve in to being heterosexual. 

Hetrosexual can not therefore evolve into asexual and asexual cannot evolve in to sexual.

[lost female soul]

Like this topic.  I feel there are enough people in the world that judge us.  We need to be allowed to be how we are.  Who knows anyway.  I’m just like any human on earth, perfectly imperfect.  I do not know the answers to questions of the universe, so who ,am I to judge.  I hope I’m not judged either.  Just trying to find my way.

[lost female soul]

Oh and I wish I had the luxury of being asexual as a kid.  Due to abuse I was sexualized at a young age.  I should have been playing in mud puddles, building with legos and dressing my dog up.  By they way I got over that before age 10 thankfully.

[R_1]

8 minutes ago, James121 said:

But in the case of the original post, they said they liked and enjoyed sex and grew/evolved in to asexuality. That’s where I dispute that it can be considered asexuality because we do not evolve in to being of a different sexual orientation. We are x, y or z. I could never evolve in to being gay for example. Gays can’t evolve in to being heterosexual. 

Hetrosexual can not therefore evolve into asexual and asexual cannot evolve in to sexual.

But, where's exactly the evidence for this claim? Lisa Diamonds studies and quite a few brain injuries studies suggest that these things do happen regardless of hormones.

[James121]

2 minutes ago, lost female soul said:

Oh and I wish I had the luxury of being asexual as a kid.  Due to abuse I was sexualized at a young age.  I should have been playing in mud puddles, building with legos and dressing my dog up.  By they way I got over that before age 10 thankfully.

I would image that the trauma you have experienced and suffered has been a massive influence on how and why you are asexual. I hope you have managed to come through the other side of this terrible thing you suffered.

[everywhere and nowhere]

On 4/14/2019 at 7:35 PM, Star Lion said:

You may not have been dehumanized in your face, but it happens in the from people saying  that it’s a mental condition to a huge amount villain/psychopaths being the ones to not ever have sexual/romantic feelings for people. Many people see can see us any of those things or as a robot for never having something that so many people have had. I admit, that I can feel pretty privileged as an ace but many people will view me as weird unfortunate for being who I am. The isolation might be more of an experience for younger aces but my differences to other people are highlighted in the conversations people my age often tend to have. It also can come from the fact that there aren’t many people around me (that I know of) that can relate on that level of living life without something that supposedly everybody else has. I really wouldn’t see a person who “grows into asexuality” relating to these experiences considering they’ve been just like everybody else for so much of there life and haven’t had to deal with odd situations in correlation to not experiencing sexual attraction in those early years

I think you're wrong about one thing: placing "not experencing sexual attraction" as the most important or even sole factor which makes people discriminated for their sexuality being deemed "insufficient". And I'm quite sure that it doesn't work like this. Celibate people may be discriminated in a very similar way; actually, I think that anti-asexual and anti-celibate prejudice may often be impossible to delineate and separate. And I don't think that it can be reduced to the effects of people not understanding the difference between asexuality and celibacy. People aren't discriminated just for "not experiencing sexual attraction", but also for the basic fact of not having sex. Sex is nowadays believed to be so obvious that really, some people become aggressive just because they know that someone doesn't have sex. And I won't even try explaining it because it's so absurd that it defies any explanation. But the fact is that this kind of prejudice exists.

[James121]

1 minute ago, R_1 said:

But, where's exactly the evidence for this claim? Lisa Diamonds studies and quite a few brain injuries studies suggest that these things do happen regardless of hormones.

That’s an unfair question. The only answer I can give you (because I do not know all human beings personally) is that there is not one single well publicised example of a hetro becoming homo or a homo becoming hetro. That is evidence in itself that it doesn’t happen. So why would it be possible (assuming asexuality is a sexual orientation as opposed to a phase) for a heterosexual to become ace?

[Anthracite_Impreza]

35 minutes ago, James121 said:

But in the case of the original post, they said they liked and enjoyed sex and grew/evolved in to asexuality. That’s where I dispute that it can be considered asexuality because we do not evolve in to being of a different sexual orientation. We are x, y or z. I could never evolve in to being gay for example. Gays can’t evolve in to being heterosexual. 

Hetrosexual can not therefore evolve into asexual and asexual cannot evolve in to sexual.

Brains are malleable things. You get bonked on the head hard enough, or have a stroke, anything could happen. No point calling someone sexual if they aren't interested in sex over a long and enduring time.

[James121]

6 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

No point calling someone sexual if they aren't interested in sex over a long and enduring time.

I absolutely agree but that doesn’t make asexuality a sexual orientation in such circumstances. It’s a resulting condition.

[Anthracite_Impreza]

5 minutes ago, James121 said:

I absolutely agree but that doesn’t make asexuality a sexual orientation in such circumstances. It’s a resulting condition.

If it amounts to the same outcome what's the difference? Someone is blind whether they were born that way or lost their sight in an industrial accident.

[James121]

10 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

If it amounts to the same outcome what's the difference? Someone is blind whether they were born that way or lost their sight in an industrial accident.

It doesn’t matter. But it’s not a sexual orientation then. It’s just something that can happen.

[Anthracite_Impreza]

13 minutes ago, James121 said:

It doesn’t matter. But it’s not a sexual orientation then. It’s just something that can happen.

Fair enough, I suppose that depends on how strict you are with what constitutes an orientation. I'm more practical than anything.

[R_1]

3 hours ago, James121 said:

That’s an unfair question. The only answer I can give you (because I do not know all human beings personally) is that there is not one single well publicised example of a hetro becoming homo or a homo becoming hetro. That is evidence in itself that it doesn’t happen. So why would it be possible (assuming asexuality is a sexual orientation as opposed to a phase) for a heterosexual to become ace?

What constitutes a well published example? Since you claimed that the evidence that sexual orientation is inherent is based on the idea that there's no example of these. It only takes at least one example to show this could be wrong. Allow me to demonstrate case studies.

 

Altered Sexual Orientation Following Dominant Hemisphere Infract from the APA itself -

Sudad Jawad M.D., FRCPI, FRCPsych, Charlotte Sidebothams M.B.B.Ch., Ruford Sequira M.B.B.S., Nahla Jamil M.R.C.P., MRCPsych

 

"The patient became aware of his homosexual orientation in his early teens and had several gay partners. He suffered a major depressive episode at age 26 that resolved within a few months. He also had a diagnosis of excessive harmful use of alcohol, but there was no evidence of dependence.

 

The patient started complaining of his changed personality and heterosexual orientation 6 months after his second stroke. At the same time he complained of excessive mood swings and changed interests. He became preoccupied with photography and had a successful photographic exhibition a year after his second stroke. His sexual orientation remained heterosexual 4 years following the second stroke, and he preferred to describe himself as bisexual because of his previous homosexual orientation."

 

More details, he was uncomfortable toward his attraction to the opposite sex, and you can explain that towards the fact that his experience is inconsistent with what many homosexual people claimed which is "we are all born this way". Two strokes, that makes hard to rule out sexual orientation changes, and his behavior before early 50s is not consistent with later behavior after the stroke making a good case of sexual orientation change. Not a very good case for every one is born this way considering that confusion explanation would make the claim not falsifiable, and by science, that has to be rejected.

 

In one of the cases found in Hypersexuality or altered sexual preference following brain injury. , a woman in her 30s after brain injury which is she went from heterosexual to homosexual. Though not much info were described though that study did shown some disturbing changes in behavior following brain injury.

 

And then there's this interesting paper - http://www.midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/1153.pdf which supports that sexual orientation is not necessarily stable for everybody.

 

With those in mind, it's hard to make the case that everyone is born that way since all of these added up together clearly suggests the opposite.

 

2 hours ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

Fair enough, I suppose that depends on how strict you are with what constitutes an orientation. I'm more practical than anything.

Exactly, there's no point into supporting people who aren't interested into sex for what seems to be the rest of their possible life adopting the label gray-sexual or sexual when that cause miscommunication. Let me see how it can go in my head with a woman that's interested into me and I'm interested as well, and I use sexual because I was once sexual. I"ll call her Jane Doe.

 

Jane Doe - Hey there, how you're doing?

Rep - Good, what about you?

Jane Doe - Good as well, hey, I been meaning to ask you about your sexuality since you don't seem very interested sexually. But, I know you're not interested into men.

Rep - Go ahead, and ask.

Jane Doe - Are you asexual?

Rep - Nah, I just keep to myself.

Jane Doe - Oh, I see. Would you like to have a coffee with me? **Gives me her address**

Rep has joined the house.

 

After a long day, Jane Doe has flirted sexually though I wouldn't mind that much if I'm really interested. Now, she went even further.

Rep experiences discomfort.

Jane Doe - So, you're not really interested?

Rep - Nah, not into that stuff.

Jane Doe reacts madly and said - I thought you were sexual?

Rep - I think I am.

Jane Doe - Maybe you're in the closet or you're gay.

Rep - Nah. I haven't felt the need to have sex since a long while ago.

Jane Doe - Maybe you're depressed.

Rep - Nah.

Jane Doe - I think you're wasting my time, get out of my house.

 

Rep has left the house.

 

See where I'm going with this? There's literally no point into supporting the usage of allosexual/sexual label for a person that lost interest when that complicates things for everybody that would be affected in some way.

 

[James121]

21 hours ago, R_1 said:

What constitutes a well published example? Since you claimed that the evidence that sexual orientation is inherent is based on the idea that there's no example of these. It only takes at least one example to show this could be wrong. Allow me to demonstrate case studies.

 

Altered Sexual Orientation Following Dominant Hemisphere Infract from the APA itself -

Sudad Jawad M.D., FRCPI, FRCPsych, Charlotte Sidebothams M.B.B.Ch., Ruford Sequira M.B.B.S., Nahla Jamil M.R.C.P., MRCPsych

 

"The patient became aware of his homosexual orientation in his early teens and had several gay partners. He suffered a major depressive episode at age 26 that resolved within a few months. He also had a diagnosis of excessive harmful use of alcohol, but there was no evidence of dependence.

 

The patient started complaining of his changed personality and heterosexual orientation 6 months after his second stroke. At the same time he complained of excessive mood swings and changed interests. He became preoccupied with photography and had a successful photographic exhibition a year after his second stroke. His sexual orientation remained heterosexual 4 years following the second stroke, and he preferred to describe himself as bisexual because of his previous homosexual orientation."

 

More details, he was uncomfortable toward his attraction to the opposite sex, and you can explain that towards the fact that his experience is inconsistent with what many homosexual people claimed which is "we are all born this way". Two strokes, that makes hard to rule out sexual orientation changes, and his behavior before early 50s is not consistent with later behavior after the stroke making a good case of sexual orientation change. Not a very good case for every one is born this way considering that confusion explanation would make the claim not falsifiable, and by science, that has to be rejected.

 

In one of the cases found in Hypersexuality or altered sexual preference following brain injury. , a woman in her 30s after brain injury which is she went from heterosexual to homosexual. Though not much info were described though that study did shown some disturbing changes in behavior following brain injury.

 

And then there's this interesting paper - http://www.midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/1153.pdf which supports that sexual orientation is not necessarily stable for everybody.

 

With those in mind, it's hard to make the case that everyone is born that way since all of these added up together clearly suggests the opposite.

 

Exactly, there's no point into supporting people who aren't interested into sex for what seems to be the rest of their possible life adopting the label gray-sexual or sexual when that cause miscommunication. Let me see how it can go in my head with a woman that's interested into me and I'm interested as well, and I use sexual because I was once sexual. I"ll call her Jane Doe.

 

Jane Doe - Hey there, how you're doing?

Rep - Good, what about you?

Jane Doe - Good as well, hey, I been meaning to ask you about your sexuality since you don't seem very interested sexually. But, I know you're not interested into men.

Rep - Go ahead, and ask.

Jane Doe - Are you asexual?

Rep - Nah, I just keep to myself.

Jane Doe - Oh, I see. Would you like to have a coffee with me? **Gives me her address**

Rep has joined the house.

 

After a long day, Jane Doe has flirted sexually though I wouldn't mind that much if I'm really interested. Now, she went even further.

Rep experiences discomfort.

Jane Doe - So, you're not really interested?

Rep - Nah, not into that stuff.

Jane Doe reacts madly and said - I thought you were sexual?

Rep - I think I am.

Jane Doe - Maybe you're in the closet or you're gay.

Rep - Nah. I haven't felt the need to have sex since a long while ago.

Jane Doe - Maybe you're depressed.

Rep - Nah.

Jane Doe - I think you're wasting my time, get out of my house.

 

Rep has left the house.

 

See where I'm going with this? There's literally no point into supporting the usage of allosexual/sexual label for a person that lost interest when that complicates things for everybody that would be affected in some way.

 

I’m afraid I remain unconvinced. The OP said they had sex, they enjoyed sex....

 

to me that hat means not asexual.

[R_1]

If the OP hasn't desired or need sex in a very long period of time and with certainty it'll remain that way,no point into using gray sexual or sexual especially when we are talking about before mid 40s and more than a decade of zero sexual attraction. All you're supporting is miscommunication and false hope. And besides, evidence suggests not every one is born that way.

[Charna]

On 4/17/2019 at 12:44 AM, James121 said:

That’s an unfair question. The only answer I can give you (because I do not know all human beings personally) is that there is not one single well publicised example of a hetro becoming homo or a homo becoming hetro. That is evidence in itself that it doesn’t happen. So why would it be possible (assuming asexuality is a sexual orientation as opposed to a phase) for a heterosexual to become ace?

At which point I have to ask: why do you assume what goes for heterosexuals or homosexuals, also must hold true for asexuals? Sexual orientation in itself is a label created by humans; very helpful when you struggle with your own identity, but in itself it tells you nothing about the biological mechanisms behind it.

[James121]

11 hours ago, Charna said:

At which point I have to ask: why do you assume what goes for heterosexuals or homosexuals, also must hold true for asexuals? Sexual orientation in itself is a label created by humans; very helpful when you struggle with your own identity, but in itself it tells you nothing about the biological mechanisms behind it.

I make the connection between what goes based on the fact that whether you are gay, straight or ace, you are still a human. 

And humans were born with a penis (if you're male) which is specifically designed to be capable of penetrating a female who of course has a vagina. And that’s how humans reproduce.

These are the sexual organs humans are born with and were intended to use.

[Charna]

5 hours ago, James121 said:

I make the connection between what goes based on the fact that whether you are gay, straight or ace, you are still a human. 

And humans were born with a penis (if you're male) which is specifically designed to be capable of penetrating a female who of course has a vagina. And that’s how humans reproduce.

These are the sexual organs humans are born with and were intended to use.

Please elaborate, because I see no connection here. Someone's reproductive organs tell you exactly nothing about their sexual orientation.

[James121]

3 hours ago, Charna said:

Please elaborate, because I see no connection here. Someone's reproductive organs tell you exactly nothing about their sexual orientation.

No they don’t but what they do tell you is what was intended! If you were born with eyes, were you intended to see things?

Born with ears intended to hear things?

So whilst I agree that they tell us nothing about a sexual orientation, the do tell us we were designed to have sex!

[Charna]

28 minutes ago, James121 said:

No they don’t but what they do tell you is what was intended! If you were born with eyes, were you intended to see things?

Born with ears intended to hear things?

So whilst I agree that they tell us nothing about a sexual orientation, the do tell us we were designed to have sex!

And? There is no correlation between the function of reproductive organs and sexual orientation either. Whether someone has children tells you nothing about their sexual orientation.

 

Again, please explain this supposed connection, because I'm not seeing it.

[James121]

8 hours ago, Charna said:

And? There is no correlation between the function of reproductive organs and sexual orientation either. Whether someone has children tells you nothing about their sexual orientation.

 

Again, please explain this supposed connection, because I'm not seeing it.

I think you’ve missed the point entirely. OP said “I used to love sex now I’ve become asexual”, people agreed, I said you can not develop a sexual orientation. You are X, Y or Z. Simple 

[Skycaptain]

@James121, sexual orientation need not remain unchanged for life.

Also some people may have been trying to be one orientation - most typically cishet - when they're not, and take decades to realise their latent orientation 

[James121]

2 hours ago, Skycaptain said:

@James121, sexual orientation need not remain unchanged for life.

Also some people may have been trying to be one orientation - most typically cishet - when they're not, and take decades to realise their latent orientation 

Well.... the first point I totally disagree with. Your orientation is your orientation and it stays. It is as black and white as that.

Your second point I agree with. People do mistake their orientation or fight their true orientation. This is not what the OP said. He/she said they enjoyed sex and evolved in to an asexual. People do not evolve in to a sexual orientation. People do not enjoy sex with woman and over time develop a sexual interest in men. It does not work like that.

[Skycaptain]

@James121, some people do. Not many, I'll accept, but some do. Just take the late Freddie Mercury as an example, he went from girlfriend to gay, and others like Frank Warren discover a new gender identity at a late age 

 

[Anthracite_Impreza]

Nothing in this world is black and white @James121. Why do you think the chemicals in a brain can't change enough to alter orientation? What makes orientation so special it's immutable?