Asexuality Is Finally Breaking Free from Medical StigmaThe stigmas of medicine today, asexuality is not a problem but a condition in oneself

[jesus dario]

I just researched something recent about asexuality, something that would belong here asexuality  It is finally free. Doctors and health workers have to unlink asexuality. It is not a disorder. Lacking or suffering from a low libido is not asexual. Doctors must understand the lack of libido with the lack of attraction.  asexuality today is not a medical problem, it is a condition of the person, it is an orientation  In the future, perhaps asexuality will no longer be the problem it used to be, but rather something part of ourselves. Here is the link I hope it is useful, it is good to help. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/asexuality-is-finally-breaking-free-from-medical-stigma/

[Marrow_]

The points about, "asexuality becoming the focus of doctors visits" is so true. However, I do wonder of the expression, or more accurately, the lack of expression of sexuality could result from DNA methylation (the regulation of gene expression through largely Methyl groups on CpG sites in the DNA, often caused by environmental factors)

 

It's kind of a random thing to bring up by I've been kind of into gene regulation by DNA methylation recently. I haven't looked all that deep into it but I do remember something several years ago about attributing ones sexuality to their genetic content and I know that methylation changes drastically over the transition period of adolescence and adulthood (though I'm not sure of the relevance to sexual development at this time). 

 

And so, if sexuality is at least in some way linked to the genome then it would stand to reason that perhaps there is some level of methylation activity in some area of the genome acting as a suppressant of sexual expression or perhaps hormone generation is some individuals. (btw, higher levels of methylation suppress gene expression).

 

Obviously, from personal experience, I am aware that asexuality is not entirely biological and is a sexual orientation and I am by no means proficient enough in this area of study to make any claims, but this article just got me thinking, you know?

[DemonicEnby]

Thanks for sharing! 

[everywhere and nowhere]

5 hours ago, jesus dario said:

Lacking or suffering from a low libido is not asexual.

Well, that said - I think that someone who completely lacks libido is "asexual by default". And low libido is, too, not necessarily a problem. It can be a problem if a preexisting libido relatively suddenly disappeared, which might (but still doesn't have to) be a sign of a a somatic illness. It can be a problem if the person in question is distressed by their lack of libido. But this, too, might have a strong sociocultural component - being conditioned to think of sex as something beautiful, of libido as an intrinsic part of us, particularly in case of men. If asexuality, celibacy and lack of libido weren't pathologised, more people might very well feel fine in absence of a libido and accept it as a part of who they are.

"Low libido" is a very relative issue. Nobody knows what the baseline is, if anything, any ideas of a baseline are produced ad hoc - and so when someone is considered to have a "problem" with low libido, it is almost always simply lower than their partner's. I have read a bit about it and I recently foound another very telling clarification in Sherronda J. Brown's "Refusing Compulsory Sexuality. A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture": when a woman in a different-sex relationship has a lower libido than her partner (it indeed happens relatively often, which is another argument against considering "FSIAD" in particular a real disorder: doesn't it go against the very definition of an illness, if, according to some sources, more than half of women "suffer" from low libido to some extent?), he is considered "normal" and she is considered to "Have A Problem". But in the less common situations in which it is the man who has a lower libido - still the woman is blamed, the man is considered "normal" and the woman is often considered some nymphomaniac or at least someone with unreasonable expectations. Judgements of "healthy" and "disordered" should be given extremely cautiously in an area so overgrown with twisted vines of gendered expectations...