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If I have no libido, can I really know I’m asexual?


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CatWhisperer

I've been thinking about this for a little while. I can't remember the last time I had a libido, if I ever did. I don't know how I’d feel if I did - would I suddenly look at my boyfriend and think, “damn, he is hot” (I do find him very aesthetically pleasing anyway) or would I be the same as always (let my him initiate), but maybe I’ll be more likely to initiate myself? 

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CatWhisperer
2 minutes ago, CBC said:

Nobody can really answer that for you.

It's more of a philosophical question...potentially, if someone has no libido, could they really know their sexuality?

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Anthracite_Impreza

You could know your orientation, since sexuality is only one attraction, and I daresay if you never feel the desire for sex you could safely call yourself ace.

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RoseGoesToYale

Libido doesn't necessarily have anything to do with orientation, e.g. a sexual person can have low/no libido, or an asexual person can have a high libido. It's more like "my body needs this physical thing to be satisfied" as opposed to who you find attractive and in which ways. So it's certainly possible to know your orientation regardless of how you experience libido.

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RoseGoesToYale
5 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Surely the point is that logically, if you have no libido, you wouldn't have the 'my body needs this physical thing' bit regardless of whether you were sexual or asexual. You'd be fine without sex ever. 

Not necessarily. Lack of libido can be perfectly fine for some people but cause distress for others (hence why Viagra exists). My understanding of libido has always been that it's the body telling a person that it needs sexual stimulation, so it would also be possible to experience arousal and have everything down there function as intended but simply not need it.

 

E.g. I don't think I've ever had a discernible libido, but the plumbing works. I know I'm somewhere in the ace vicinity because I've never looked at another person and wanted sex with them. So I think it depends on the individual... how they see their own libido or libido in general, and where and whether they direct it at someone. (Then again, I'm beginning to see sexual orientation in general as hard to pin down)

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everywhere and nowhere
21 minutes ago, RoseGoesToYale said:

Lack of libido can be perfectly fine for some people but cause distress for others (hence why Viagra exists).

But viagra doesn't influence libido in any way. It only works on the "plumbing".

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2 hours ago, CBC said:

If someone had no libido due to some sort of health condition or trauma or something, then honestly it could be really hard to tell. I've been that person. Some people will tell you otherwise, but yes, if your lack of libido has a particular identifiable cause (even if you've not identified it yet), it could be impossible to know if you're asexual.

But, if said condition makes it irreversible and the person learns to be fine with the absence of sexuality with no wish or care to go back, then what would be the pondering upon your sexual orientation? I'd actually argue that if it won't go back, and you're fine with it, then at some point, you're basically no different than born-this-way asexual.  At some point, memories of you being a sexual would feel completely alien (That what it feels like when I remember my sexuality, I know I was there, but they don't feel like me me). And if you're not fine, then you go by whatever id you had before the health condition. If you were always with no libido or no attraction, is there really a point into iding yourself as anything other than asexual? If said health condition was before puberty and continues to persist, no point into id other than asexual.

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I consider it asexuality by default.

 

I feel like that if I had a libido it would probably cause my sexual orientation to fall in line with my romantic orientation and result in me being heterosexual instead, but... no point really in dwelling over what ifs.

 

3 hours ago, RoseGoesToYale said:

Libido doesn't necessarily have anything to do with orientation, e.g. a sexual person can have low/no libido,

I really don't see how a sexual person could have none whatsoever.  Low, sure, but not zero.

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What @CBC said.  I've known my orientation since I was a young teen.  It has never waivered.  However my libido sure has.  Two marriages where I went completely numb and had zero desire for physical intimacy, nor did I have the desire to masturbate during those times.  Mental health, and abuse shut that shit right down for me.  

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I really don't get how you can potentially view someone in a sexual way (in the sense you find them sexually attractive, or want to do sexual things with them, or *whatever* it is that makes one a sexual person), yet still have zero libido.

 

To me that's like saying you have a favorite toy, but that you also don't care whatsoever to play with toys.  If that's true, how did you develop a favorite?

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40 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

I really don't get how you can potentially view someone in a sexual way (in the sense you find them sexually attractive, or want to do sexual things with them, or *whatever* it is that makes one a sexual person), yet still have zero libido.

My answer to this is that you can't.... Not at that moment.  But I had in the past.  I didn't walk into those relationships with no libido.  They were lost in a sea of distrust and depression.  Even throughout those periods of time I still loved my partners and I still found them attractive.  I didn't understand what was happening to me.  I would have sex feeling dead inside and cry myself to sleep wondering why I was so broken and blaming myself for all of it.  Now I understand.  That was my body trying to protect me.

 

However, I was never suddenly Ace when I lived through that (and I'm talking a good 6 years like that the last time).  Just as I was never not bisexual when in a hetero-normative relationship.

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5 hours ago, Philip027 said:

I consider it asexuality by default.

A persons sexual orientation can not be their orientation by default. They are either x, y or z. You can’t default to t if the others don’t seem to fit well. That’s not a sexual orientation.

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Please tell me what other orientation that someone with no libido and therefore no sexual proclivities toward anyone else regardless of their sex/gender could possibly be, then.

 

"But I do like X gender sexually --"

Yeah well, in my book, that's some degree of a libido present, not zero.

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Liking someone sexually doesn't mean there's a libido. It just mean you'd be open to the action provided that person is wanting the action as well.

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2 minutes ago, R_1 said:

Liking someone sexually doesn't mean there's a libido. 

How could it not?  Genuinely curious here.

 

I'm still really not getting how you can view someone in a sexual light and yet still claim you have no sexual drive.

 

4 minutes ago, R_1 said:

It just mean you'd be open to the action provided that person is wanting the action as well.

Being open to sex isn't really indicative of anything, other than not being sex repulsed.  Asexuals can be open to sex.

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51 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

How could it not?  Genuinely curious here.

 

I'm still really not getting how you can view someone in a sexual light and yet still claim you have no sexual drive.

 

Being open to sex isn't really indicative of anything, other than not being sex repulsed.  Asexuals can be open to sex.

The thing is that there could be an attraction during the sexual activity. The drive doesn't necessarily have to be there. While being open to sex isn't meaning much, if there is some potential attraction before or during sex, that's what I call being allosexual. All this mean is non-libidoist sexual would require the other to initiate. 

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12 hours ago, FutureCrazyCatLady said:

I've been thinking about this for a little while. I can't remember the last time I had a libido, if I ever did. I don't know how I’d feel if I did - would I suddenly look at my boyfriend and think, “damn, he is hot” (I do find him very aesthetically pleasing anyway) or would I be the same as always (let my him initiate), but maybe I’ll be more likely to initiate myself? 

Anthony Bogaert, a prominent researcher on asexuality, has said that a lack of a sex drive - or "an enduring lack of desire for all forms of sexual activities" - is a more stringent definition of asexuality than lack of sexual attraction. Lots of asexuals have a sex drive - it just isn't directed toward partnered sexual activities. And increasing someone's sex drive doesn't change their orientation. In the past, people tried to change homosexuals' sexual orientation by giving them drugs like Viagra, but it didn't work. All it did was lead them to want to engage in more homosexual activities. If an asexual takes Viagra, it might give them a sex drive and want to masturbate, but it isn't going to make them want partnered sex.

 

Now, libido can fluctuate for all sorts of reasons, and people can go through periods of little to no sex drive for one reason or another (depression, abuse, medications, lack of an appropriate partner, etc.). But when someone has never had a libido and this last for years beyond adolescence, I think it's safe to say the person is asexual.

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everywhere and nowhere
9 hours ago, CBC said:

Illness? Severe trauma? I can promise you that I didn't think about sex in any way that wasn't very detached and with a vague sense of "eww", and also didn't ever masturbate, it literally never occurred to me, between the ages of about 16 and 21. But here I am in my 30s and although I still struggle -- a lot, actually -- things are different in many ways now, plus I understand myself much better. I'm not asexual whatsoever, and never was. That component of a relationship is actually vital to me and I'm a fairly sexual person. I didn't become sexual from being asexual, though; I was physically and mentally unwell (and again still am, but it's different now) and had no clue who I was then. And yes, I had absolutely zero libido.

Still, there is a difference between someone's libido dropping and it having never been there in the first place. In this case I agree with @Philip027 - if someone has really no libido whatsoever, it would make them asexual by default. Sure, there is place for considering details, such as differentiating between low libido and no libido, or - assuming it already exists - between a more typical "sexual" libido and an "asexual" libido which still doesn't translate into any desire for partnered sex. But libido is the most basic level of sexuality. As we can see on the example of libidoist asexuals, attraction and desire don't have to grow out of it. But if there is no libido, there is also no basis for arousal, attraction and desire, neither of them should be able to develop.

Given how libido doesn't have to lead to desire, but desire or even arousal won't develop in the absence of libido - it's probably not a good idea for someone with zero libido to have sex. It will most likely be uncomfortable for such a person. For men some forms of sex may turn out to be quite impossible if there's no arousal to begin with, but also for women sex without arousal is likely to be physically unpleasant.

40 minutes ago, MLJ said:

In the past, people tried to change homosexuals' sexual orientation by giving them drugs like Viagra, but it didn't work. All it did was lead them to want to engage in more homosexual activities. If an asexual takes Viagra, it might give them a sex drive and want to masturbate, but it isn't going to make them want partnered sex.

As far as I know, viagra only works on the "plumbing", not on libido. (Which is also, by the way, why drugs like flibanserin, which are genuinely risky and can only contribute to pathologisation of asexuality, shouldn't be called "female viagra" because they have an entirely different mode of action.)

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6 hours ago, Nowhere Girl said:

As we can see on the example of libidoist asexuals, attraction and desire don't have to grow out of it. But if there is no libido, there is also no basis for arousal, attraction and desire, neither of them should be able to develop.

Yes, this is pretty much the crux of my argument.  "Nonlibidoist sexual" simply doesn't compute, which is why I say the "ace by default" thing.

 

Maybe people who suddenly spark a libido somehow might have some reason to reevaluate, but until then, there is really no basis to call them sexual if they are truly nonlib, at least in my eyes.

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Grumpy Alien
On 4/18/2019 at 12:47 PM, CBC said:

If someone had no libido due to some sort of health condition or trauma or something, then honestly it could be really hard to tell. I've been that person. Some people will tell you otherwise, but yes, if your lack of libido has a particular identifiable cause (even if you've not identified it yet), it could be impossible to know if you're asexual.

I’ve also been that person and I couldn’t have answered this for myself unless something changed. It’s one of the many reasons I stopped applying labels to myself.

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16 hours ago, Nowhere Girl said:

As far as I know, viagra only works on the "plumbing", not on libido. (Which is also, by the way, why drugs like flibanserin, which are genuinely risky and can only contribute to pathologisation of asexuality, shouldn't be called "female viagra" because they have an entirely different mode of action.)

I'm not sure how you are using libido. From my understanding, libido and sex drive are basically the same thing. Viagra works by increasing arousal, and when people become sexually aroused, they are motivated to engaged in sexual activities (i.e. sex drive). There is a correlation between sexual arousal and sexual drive.

 

(Maybe what you're saying is that there is no correlation between sexual arousal and sexual drive?)

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21 hours ago, Philip027 said:

Please tell me what other orientation that someone with no libido and therefore no sexual proclivities toward anyone else regardless of their sex/gender could possibly be, then.

 

"But I do like X gender sexually --"

Yeah well, in my book, that's some degree of a libido present, not zero.

Heterosexual/homosexual with no libido?

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everywhere and nowhere
56 minutes ago, MLJ said:

I'm not sure how you are using libido. From my understanding, libido and sex drive are basically the same thing. Viagra works by increasing arousal, and when people become sexually aroused, they are motivated to engaged in sexual activities (i.e. sex drive).

As far as I know, viagra doesn't increase arousal. It only increases physical symptoms of arousal (erection) in men who have some kind of problem, usually purely physical, with having an erection.

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3 hours ago, James121 said:

Heterosexual/homosexual with no libido?

How would you know you're hetero/homo if you have no libido?

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9 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

How would you know you're hetero/homo if you have no libido?

I mean, romantic attraction helps.  Much in the way that an ace could be hetero/homo/bi/pan/aro.... Libido distinguishes nothing without context.

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4 minutes ago, ☆゚°˖* ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ said:

I mean, romantic attraction helps.

Sigh.

 

How would you know you're hetero/homosexual if you have no libido?

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2 hours ago, Philip027 said:

Sigh.

 

How would you know you're hetero/homosexual if you have no libido?

Because of romantic attraction, like I said.  That's what SAM is all about.

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4 hours ago, Philip027 said:

Sigh.

 

How would you know you're hetero/homosexual if you have no libido?

Also you can desire the intimacy without the libido. I have libido issues sometimes these days but I still desire intimacy that's sexual in nature sometimes, even if my body doesn't physically react to the desire (no genital arousal or anything).

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14 hours ago, Nowhere Girl said:

As far as I know, viagra doesn't increase arousal. It only increases physical symptoms of arousal (erection) in men who have some kind of problem, usually purely physical, with having an erection.

I guess this just isn't a distinction I'd normally make because to me arousal is physical symptoms. I realize there is a subjective component of arousal where someone perceives that their bodies are physically aroused. Some studies have shown that asexuals can become physically aroused, but they don't perceive themselves as being aroused. I think there are also some studies showing the same thing with women (that machines monitoring physical arousal show arousal but the women don't perceive themselves being aroused). And I'd agree that drugs like Viagra only affect the physical symptoms of arousal and won't necessarily influence subjective experiences of arousal.

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I feel like there is a big misunderstanding on one end or the other about just what libido actually is (remarkably similar to how when I initially came here, I didn't feel very connected to most supposedly asexual people here due to how "sexual" they seemed), but whatever.  I feel like I've exhausted this discussion

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