Likely Asexual

[EGAD!]

Found this in a book I've been reading recently...

"I recall treating a young woman a number of years ago--pre-SSRIs--who might be considered a poster child for queer theory, except that she was miserable. Carol (a pseudonym) was a highly educated anatomical female in her late twenties working as an accountant when she came to me for treatment. Her problem: She had no sexual orientation. Indeed, she had no sexual desire, and, in retrospect, I believe she had no gender identity, though neither she nor I concieved of her without a gender identity at the time. She had never masturbated, never experienced orgasm, and was clueless about "performing" feminity. For example she was unaware that a ring with a precious stone worn on the ring finger of the left hand of a woman indicates that the woman is engaged. She was surprised that a beld "should" be worn. When she attempted to use a tampon, she developed Reynaud's syndrome: her hand turned blue. It was not that she felt like a male, but that she did not feel like anything. More than once, she jokingly suggested that she came from outer space.

Carol was highly superego driven: She was a dutiful daughter, loyal sister, and hard worker. Oblivious to her own attractiveness, she was awkward, highly obsessional, actuarian minded, anxious, and painfully shy. Today, she might be discribed as somewhat Asperger's-like. Interestingly, Carol wanted sexual desire not in and of itself (never having experienced it) but for its instrumental value, reasoning, sensibly enough, that it was necessary for finding a life mate. Above all, she was desperately lonely.

Carol reported being happiest when she attached herself to a group as a kind of comic tagalong, like when she joined a sorority in college and acted as a go-between at parities. She daydreamed about joining the military (though she was antiwar), or a convent (though she was not Catholic), or a commune--any place where she could function without having to pair off. Her fantasies, which were never explicityly sexual, were of "hanging out" with Elton John, or me, or Pierce Brosnan, or a young female secretary in her office. Not surprisingly, her first reported dream was about Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. In fact, she dreamt repeatedly of this story and reported identifying with Tiger Lily, the Indian princess who was tied up. Interestingly, during the course of Carol's two-year-long, weekly psychotherapy, she began to engage very sporadically in playful S/M with men, during whihc her hands were tied. She was neither orgasmic nor even genitally aroused during these activities, but found them somewhat compelling and tilting toward sexual excitation.

We could never piece together a psychodynamic narrative to explain her sexual ambiguity. Her parents, though conventional, were not repressive, and they encouraged her to pursue any sexual orientation to which she might be inclined. The most salient aspect of her childhood, asider from her lifelong feeling of not fitting in, was the resentment she felt toward her parents for not favoring her--she, who was so well behavied--over her sister who acted out. She left therapy prematurely for financial reasons, though she was quite pleased with herself for engaging in a proto-sexual act."

From The End Of Gender by Shari L. Thurer published in 2005 p 188-189

Would be interesting to e-mail her if possible and point out asexuality and AVEN to her.