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Definitions - my conclusions


Dreamsexual

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Dreamsexual

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Comrade F&F

Functional asexual. Love it.

 

Here's your obligatory cake.

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Dreamsexual

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Comrade F&F
1 minute ago, Dreamsexual said:

Ha, ha :)  Is that whiskey in the cake ...?

Yes. Yes it is.

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lol that was difficult to read with the Dark Theme active. Just looked like a wall of black.

 

I think I can mostly agree or understand, though I still separate myself (ficto-sexual from what I understand it to mean) from objectum-sexuals since I'm not sure a mental construct of a human should be classified under the same category as cars.

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Dreamsexual
On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 9:37 AM, sithgirlix said:

since I'm not sure a mental construct of a human should be classified under the same category as cars.

.2).

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everywhere and nowhere

A very insightful topic, thank you a lot for it.

I wonder how would you define the difference between "functional asexuality" and "effective asexuality"? I often treat them as if they were the same, very likely because English is my second language and "effectively asexual" somewhow sounds better, but in Polish only "jestem funkcjonalnie aseksualna" would work.

I'm a different kind of functional asexual, but I still find this concept very useful. I'm not ficto-, digi- or objectumsexual, I'm rather functionally asexual due to being sex-averse to the point where my fear of sex and nudity fully prevents me from being able to desire any partnered sexual contact. I experience sexual attraction, but it is expressed not in wanting to have sex, but in third-person fantasies only. Probably this borders on fictosexual, however I never fantasise in first person - even fictional sex with my own participation feels much too distressing, I feel short of breath when trying to imagine myself in such a situation. But then, there may be no strict boundary between first and third person - some third-person fantasies may have a "voyeuristic" bend, but some may be more like "in my mind I turn myself into another person so that I become capable of wanting and having sex".

I regret one thing: how the predominant discourse pushes people like us into the area of pathology, denies us a language of our own. I prefer to consciously reject such assumptions and to work towards a depathologisation of sex aversion. I am a proud person, I refuse to call myself "broken", but even I have absorbed some of this sex-normative discourse. I too need to tell myself that sexualities which don't include actual physical contact are not worse. And yet I'm aware that functionally asexual people (both the sex-averse and the inorganic psychesexual) are probably even much more pathologised than people who are indeed 100% asexual. We are expected to want to "win our sexuality back" since we have a potential for it. And yet I don't want to. I wouldn't want to become able to have sex. I don't want to have sex ever and would find it distressing if I had to deal with desire.

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On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 11:04 AM, Nowhere Girl said:

I wonder how would you define the difference between "functional asexuality" and "effective asexuality"?

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2 hours ago, Dreamsexual said:

It comes with a simple thought experiment test: imagine you are in a café and you know for certain that any adult human you want will have a sexual relationship with you if you just leave the café – any human past, present, even future.  Or, you can stay in the café with their very nice cake selection.  If you’re looking to see if they have Black Forest Gateaux, and not after a struggle with temptation against a religious vow or something similar, then you’re functionally asexual as far as I’m concerned. 

Something about the thought experiment isn’t quite working for me, but I can’t quite put a finger on it.

 

I have to guess that some sexual people would sometimes choose the cafe and sometimes choose the opportunity to have sex, depending on how they were feeling at the time.

 

If you intended it in a permanent sense (leave and have sex at some point, or stay in the cafe forever), neither of those appeals to me.

 

Like I said, can’t quite put my finger on it! 

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On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 11:37 AM, ryn2 said:

I have to guess that some sexual people would sometimes choose the cafe and sometimes choose the opportunity to have sex, depending on how they were feeling at the time.

..

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4 minutes ago, Dreamsexual said:

Only if one is assuming the sexual relationship has to be engaged in directly after leaving. 

So if you stay in the cafe now, you are trading off ever having sex with anyone?

 

To me it reads a bit like trading dessert now for a magic card that will provide you - at a time of your choosing - the chance to have sex with someone you might not get to have sex with otherwise.

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On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 11:43 AM, ryn2 said:

So if you stay in the cafe now, you are trading off every having sex with anyone?

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Gotcha.  The “magical card” idea still feels like it wouldn’t appeal to some sexuals, based on what they have said about what draws them to partnered sex, but maybe I am overthinking it.

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letusdeleteouraccounts

I like this conclusion and idea 100%. It makes sense, it answers the question at hand, and it fits with the definition of asexuality. With a person who experiences sexual attraction towards objects etc. versus an asexual, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference unless you really asked for details so “effective asexual” is perfect. It’s also easy to understand in a real world sense rather than being made up jargon so that is also a plus. The difficulties start getting into things like “robosexual” and “fictosexual” so I ask that you guys just use the word asexual to describe yourselves to people outside of the community for the respect of the community unless you really feel like you have to go into a detailed explanation of your sexuality. Nobody’s really thinking of objects and spirits anyways when you say “people that don’t experience sexual attraction” to answer their “what’s an asexual” question

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4 hours ago, Dreamsexual said:

they have no inner-sex life of their own.

Regarding the definition itself, this is the only part I really question.  Isn’t all sex-related fantasizing a type of inner sex life, whether or not the person fantasizing “participates” in the fantasy?

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On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 1:14 PM, ryn2 said:

Isn’t all sex-related fantasizing a type of inner sex life, whether or not the person fantasizing “participates” in the fantasy?

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On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 1:01 PM, Star Lion said:

The difficulties start getting into things like “robosexual” and “fictosexual” so I ask that you guys just use the word asexual to describe yourselves to people outside of the community for the respect of the community unless you really feel like you have to go into a detailed explanation of your sexuality

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6 minutes ago, Dreamsexual said:

I believe so.  If someone has a sexual fantasy life, then I think they fall under the effective not complete category.  Was that not clear in the definition?

 

 

If that’s what you meant, probably.

 

I personally see a distinction between “a sexual fantasy life” (in the sense of entering an alternate reality that happens to be imaginary and engaging in sex there) and having sexual fantasies (thinking about sexual things while masturbating, e.g.).  I would agree that the former is not asexual, but think the latter can be.  The division is roughly the same as the one between an object serving as a masturbation aid and an object as a partner.

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4 hours ago, Dreamsexual said:

It comes with a simple thought experiment test: imagine you are in a café and you know for certain that any adult human you want will have a sexual relationship with you, at a time of your choosing, if you just leave the café – any human past, present, even future.  Or, you can stay in the café with their very nice cake selection, and after the first bite of cake the world returns to normal.  If you’re looking to see if they have Black Forest Gateaux, and not after a struggle with temptation against a religious vow or something similar, then you’re functionally asexual as far as I’m concerned. 

If you’re ‘functionally asexual’ and simply want to abbreviate this to ‘asexual’ in everyday use that seems fine to me.  As does coming out as asexual, wearing a black ring, or having asexual pride paraphernalia etc.  It’s only amongst other asexuals or in specialised contexts (like AVEN) it becomes necessary to be more specific, I think.

It's a thought experiment I've seen posted a few times on these forums. I don't desire sex with anyone, doesn't interest me in real life. This thought experiment usually has a 'with no consequences' attached to it, If there were truly no consequences then I'd probably be curious for either gender. I'm curious about a lot of things I haven't tried :)

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letusdeleteouraccounts
4 minutes ago, Dreamsexual said:

defines me but what I am attracted to, not what I 'lack', if that makes sense.

It makes total sense and that’s actually a pretty eye opening statement

 

By respect, I’m just talking about society. A lot of heteronormal people today are scared of labels, especially complicated ones that move away from the simple concepts of the human experience. Almost all of these labels under effective asexual are pretty much guaranteed to bring further backlash to the LGBTQ+ community and the ace community itself, so you have to be careful that these words are used in the right place at the right time around the right people using the right words

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On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 1:27 PM, ryn2 said:

I personally see a distinction between “a sexual fantasy life” (in the sense of entering an alternate reality that happens to be imaginary and engaging in sex there) and having sexual fantasies (thinking about sexual things while masturbating, e.g.).

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1 minute ago, Dreamsexual said:

So people who either don't masturbate at all, or who do it void of sexual fantasising I would likely classify as Complete Asexuals (other factors put aside), whereas someone masturbating to imagonary sexual activity has some form of sexual life, however limited, and I'd calssify that as a form of Effective Asexual.

Hm.  That would make me only effectively asexual, even though I have no desire for partnered sex of any sort, even in my fantasies (in which I never personally exist).  I’m not sure I see why that’s different than using porn as a masturbation aid.

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On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 1:37 PM, ryn2 said:

I’m not sure I see why that’s different than using porn as a masturbation aid.

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everywhere and nowhere

Still, this thought experiment is certainly odd and I get why "something's not working". For one thing, probably most allosexual people don't desire sex with any random person. Even if it was not about a random person, but rather "anyone you wish", still people very often don't desire only sex, but interaction with another person, and this desire can't be fulfilled by a random encounter.

Still, thought experiments can be interesting. Despite being sex-averse, I too do feel a level of curiousity, I'm just not going to satisfy it. And with the help of a "thought experiment question", I've been able to pinpoint quite clearly where my boundaries lie. I remember someone asking a question: if you could try something which would perfectly replicate the sensations of sex, would you try it? - to which someone responded: you mean something like an ultra-sophisticated sex toy? So, in this case I can be sure that I wouldn't try. I also would never try contact with a sexbot, even if I know that at current level of AI development (and, to be honest, I don't believe in the possibility to create an AI which would be truly thoughtfeeling. We don't even understand how our own minds work, how could we hope to replicate them?) the bot couldn't truly "see me", "think about me", "judge me". No. It would feel frightening because it would be too close to having sex with an actual human partner. However, if it was possible to stimulate the brain, with chemical or electrical means, in order to produce a hallucination of sensations of having sex, when in fact nothing - apart from symptoms of arousal and/or stress - would be happening to the body... yes, this is something I could try.

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13 minutes ago, Dreamsexual said:

It's not.  Both are forms of inner sex-life (the consumption of sexual images for any kind of stimulation is a mental act, imho).  A porn user and a fantasist would both be forms of effective ace, some sort of aegosexual or autochorissexual etc.  I'm sorry this wasn't clear in the OP.

I think it was clear, which is why I noticed it.  I just don’t agree.

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On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 1:54 PM, ryn2 said:

I think it was clear, which is why I noticed it.  I just don’t agree.

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On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 1:45 PM, Nowhere Girl said:

For one thing, probably most allosexual people don't desire sex with any random person. Even if it was not about a random person, but rather "anyone you wish", still people very often don't desire only sex, but interaction with another person, and this desire can't be fulfilled by a random encounter.

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5 minutes ago, Dreamsexual said:

OK, you've confused me :)

 

But yes, we can simply agree to disagree here.

 

From my POV running pornographic imagery on the mind's eye for some sort of sexualised gratification/ stimulus is the same as running it on a screen for the same end, in that they are both, however muted, sexual activities (and thus constitute, however limitedly, a sex life).  Adding the detail of personal imagined involvement is just a complicating factor, not a defining factor (IMHO).

From my POV there is a difference between enjoying reading or viewing (or imagining) sexual content and wanting to take part in some way.

 

I guess it depends on whether you take “asexuality” to literally mean “completely without sex,” including solo sex for any reason but relief of a physical urge (the equivalent of eating only to satisfy hunger), or to mean “without partnered sex.”

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On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 2:23 PM, ryn2 said:

enjoying reading or viewing (or imagining) sexual content and wanting to take part in some way.

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