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Aeon article on asexuality / aromanticism


ScribalMarks

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1 minute ago, Marian the Herbalist said:

It says that many asexuals experience sexual desire, which I find odd, since in my head sexual attraction = sexual desire.


Saw plenty that have sex drive from their bodies but no attraction on people to use it with. But I don't know if it's 'many', that seems a bit odd to me. I don't really know how many do have it though.

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1 minute ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:


Saw plenty that have sex drive from their bodies but no attraction on people to use it with. But I don't know if it's 'many', that seems a bit odd to me. I don't really know how many do have it though.

Libido isn't desire, though, libido is arousal, which that article also mentions.

 

 

... or maybe it's not? Now I'm getting confused.

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"Or he might struggle with arousal despite finding her sexually attractive and wanting to have sex with her." No, this is a medical condition referred to as impotence.

 

I disagree with most of the article, but the rest is the kind of confusion an outsider would have reading through the forums. It appears they sought no clarification on anything before writing the article.

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4 minutes ago, Marian the Herbalist said:

Libido isn't desire, though, libido is arousal, which that article also mentions.

 

 

... or maybe it's not? Now I'm getting confused.


I think it's about the same thing. Because it wouldn't make sense for sexual desire to mean wanting to have sex. Most asexuals don't want sex since there's no one they want to do it with, lol. But they can still feel a drive. Well, that's how I see it, but maybe I don't fully know either. Not sure what the article was going for, but it's possible they don't know too much themselves, dunno.

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Just now, Sarah-Sylvia said:


I think it's about the same thing. Because it wouldn't make sense for sexual desire to mean wanting to have sex. Most asexuals don't want sex since there's no one they want to do it with, lol. But they can still feel a drive. Well, that's how I see it, but maybe I don't fully know either. Not sure what the article was going for, but it's possible they don't know too much themselves, dunno.

Well, desire means "want", which, in terms of sexual contact ... if you desire sexual contact, that just sounds like you want to have sex with someone, which sounds pretty sexual to me.

 

That article seems to not really know what it's talking about, after seeing what natsume quoted. I only scrolled through it.

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3 minutes ago, Marian the Herbalist said:

Well, desire means "want", which, in terms of sexual contact ... if you desire sexual contact, that just sounds like you want to have sex with someone, which sounds pretty sexual to me.

 

That article seems to not really know what it's talking about, after seeing what natsume quoted. I only scrolled through it.


I admit they didn't do a very good job with some things seems like.

But they say: " Sexual desire is the urge to have sexual pleasure but not necessarily with anyone in particular. "
And that's more the definition of a sex drive, since they talk about urge, not want. They weren't perfect with the wording, you could say.

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It feels and reads like a college essay that has been rushed for a deadline. It is verbose, doesn't agree with itself, and meanders. It actually felt like there were multiple writers when I read it backwards.

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AceMissBehaving

I didn’t agree with everything, but I do think it explored  some interesting ideas 

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Extremely meandering piece with no clear thesis. What is the actual point of the essay? What's it trying to argue or clarify or illuminate?

 

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These facts haven’t been widely understood, and asexuality has yet to be taken seriously.

And this article is going to do nothing to change that. It's extremely dry, confusing, and poorly argued. The discussion about the difference between sexual attraction, as opposed desire, activity, and arousal is insipid and not intuitive, and in any case seems to undermine their argument. If the article is about sharing love and physical intimacy sans sex, then why does so much of the article dedicate time to discussing how "many" asexuals actually love sex and enjoy having it in the context of their romantic relationships? It states, for example, that:

 

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[some asexuals] will engage in sex in particular contexts and for particular reasons, eg, to benefit a partner; to feel close to someone; to relax; to benefit their mental health, and so on.

Literally the same reasons any so-called "allosexual" person has sex. 

 

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The existence of asexual romance helps us to see that any purported connection between romantic love and sex needs to be weakened. But it is also worth remembering that some asexual people have, and enjoy, sex.

In a nutshell this is why many people don't take asexuality seriously. The author wants to weaken the connection between sex and romance but then immediately reinforces it. I think if you desire sex, and you are willing to consensually have it with someone, and you enjoy it, then you are the very least sufficiently sexually attracted to them to participate in it. Even if it's not some "burning desire", even if the attraction arises out an emotional or romantic connection rather than a "purely" sexual one. Even if it's just for the hell of it. Their argument followed through to its conclusion makes no sense at all: would someone who simply desires sex be willing to indulge in it with anyone? Clearly not. So what is it that narrows the list of candidates other than needing sufficient attraction (or lacking repulsion, same difference). Even the most non-fussy person, who may exclude no sex nor body type from consideration, will probably not have sex with literally anyone they meet. 

 

I also think there is a circularity problem with a lot of the arguments. No offence to AVEN, but a lot of the academic literature cites AVEN as its evidence base and a source, which then in turn cites the literature as evidence of the truth of the concepts espoused on here. 

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