Incredibly Ace Moments

[will123]

In the 70s in Ontario, the only sex ed we had was during Grade 11 phys ed. The classes were segregated and we learned about how both sexes' reproductive systems worked. Plus a bit on STDs.

[Aloney]

We actually did have a tiny bit of sex ed in school. In fifth grade I think we covered both male and female anatomy in biology, and in seventh or eighth grade they showed us some videos about "you're going to feel feelings and this is how to handle them" and "always use protection or you're going to get a baby or an STD", but then also about "these parts are sensitive in males and females and touch them with care, don't be too rough with your partner"?? I remember a video clip where an animated girl and boy were standing across each other, both naked, and the boy was squeezing the girl's breasts and the girl was pulling the boy's penis and they were both hurting, WTF? 😂

[Guest]

I was a bit more lucky when it comes to sex ed! Male and female reproductive organs were covered in biology class, but that depended on your school and on your teacher. My teacher was really good and he taught us in detail. I think I was around thirteen. We also had the visit of the 'sex ladies' as we called them. They came twice to my school around the same time and we had some information about sex, STDs, birth control and so on. They also answered our questions.

Since the area I live in is a bit conservative when it comes to LGBT+ rights, we weren't taught anything about that. The first time I heard about LGBT+ people was the following year, when watching international news. I was so surprised I though it was a prank! That shows you how uninformed we were about that! 😂

[ColeHW34]

I haven't even gone to sex ed because it wasn't mandatory in middle school or high school.

Also they knew i hated the idea of being in a relationship of any kind.

[Laplace]

We got fairly extensive sex education in school (elementary, middle, and high school had progressively more in-depth sections) to the point where we pretty much had to watch educational videos about sexual intercourse. I knew how everything worked so I just took video games to class cause it was super uncomfortable watching essentially educational porn.

[Forest Spirit]

Apart from the little to no sex-ed at school and pretty much no info from my parents, my main source was such a sex-ed book for children which I bought at a flea market when I was about 11... apparently I was interested enough in learning about these kinds of things to do that it covers the biological changes, anatomy, periods, birth control, some psychological aspects, eating healthy and stuff like that, 1/4 of a page about homosexuality (not 100% correct though since it was published in 1985 so yeah... bit of a bummer), PIV sex with like a cross-section picture (is it called like that??) and a whole section about pregnancies, how genetics work (a bit) and so on. I've looked at it again now and even though it's not 100% up-to-date the thing I like is that it actually promotes body positivity and self-care and such things!

[Ninouk]

22 minutes ago, Quasar.w said:

Apart from the little to no sex-ed at school and pretty much no info from my parents, my main source was such a sex-ed book for children which I bought at a flea market when I was about 11... apparently I was interested enough in learning about these kinds of things to do that it covers the biological changes, anatomy, periods, birth control, some psychological aspects, eating healthy and stuff like that, 1/4 of a page about homosexuality (not 100% correct though since it was published in 1985 so yeah... bit of a bummer), PIV sex with like a cross-section picture (is it called like that??) and a whole section about pregnancies, how genetics work (a bit) and so on. I've looked at it again now and even though it's not 100% up-to-date the thing I like is that it actually promotes body positivity and self-care and such things!

I remember my mum bringing me a similar book from the library when I was around that age. I wasn't particularly interested, but looking back it was a clever way of her to go about it imo - no clumsy conversations or explanations needed!

[Guest]

This is probably the weirdest thing I will ever write. I had a kind of ace moment a month ago while a microscope workshop about fungi. At some point there was a fungus called Cercospora beticola (see spoiler box), belonging to the group of the fungi imperfecti (= incomplete fungi). Cercospora beticola is an "ace" because it only produces asexual conidia and no sexual spores. 

 

Despite being a fungus, Cercospora beticola is also called incomplete (like aces) because of lacking sexual reproduction. I find it interesting that these norms apply to asexual fungi as well. Science seems always to value asexuality as inferior in a biological context. Maybe because of anthropocentrism but I'm not sure about that.

 

Oddly enough,I have some sympathy for Cercospora beticola because it is asexual and because it doesn't have such a ridiculous complicated reproduction cycle like most fungi.

 

Spoiler

 

[Ennis]

57 minutes ago, Toa Lhikan said:

Cercospora beticola is also called incomplete (like aces) because of lacking sexual reproduction. I find it interesting that these norms apply to asexual fungi as well. Science seems always to value asexuality as inferior in a biological context.

This is just about reproduction though. If I remember my biology lessons correctly (help me, scientifically educated people!), sexual reproduction offers some kind of advantage because two types of DNA are combined to form a new one.

Humans can't reproduce asexually. Us asexuals are regarded as inferior because we don't want to reproduce at all. I don't think calling Cercospore beticola incomplete has anything to do with anthropocentrism.

[will123]

I recall asexual animals (hydras?) being mentioned in Grade 9 biology ('75/'76). That was my only exposure to the word until I read about asexuality in 2005.

[firebird8]

I got a book from Focus on the Family called Preparing for Adolescence. I was homeschooled, so that was all the sex ed I got. My parents marked a passage where Dobson (the author) wrote that masturbation didn't hurt anyone and told me they didn't agree, actually it was a sin. Other than that and an incomprehensible description of the missionary position, I don't recall anything about the book. I also was regularly informed by radio shows and visiting preachers and religious novels that condoms were unsexy and useless because they had holes in them far bigger than the AIDS virus (yes, the AIDS virus, what, are you expecting scientific accuracy?) And, well, a litany of other false information.

 

I think one of my favorites is the idea that no one has ever had a way of counting days (such as a week, month, year) other than a seven day week, EXCEPT for Soviet Russia. They tried it, a five day week with the days named by colors, but it didn't work because people weren't off work the same days as their friends so they scrapped it and went back to the seven day week. It's...I mean there's a bit of truth buried in there about Soviet factory workers in the 20s, but the rest of it is just whack. 

[Liana]

14 hours ago, griffinej5 said:

My recollection of that stuff in school is the boys and girls being separated in 5th grade when they told us about periods, and the boys about... something. I don’t know. Then in Junior High health class, we had some stuff about learning different body systems and the reproductive systems were in there. We had health again in 11th grade, and I realize now, that teacher was making some pretty homophobic comments in there. I knew what she was referring to, but I did not realize at the time who she could be referring to. 

(I am a boy so I was part of the boy group) Unless I’m remembering things badly, it was just saying “your bodies are changing”, I didn’t really learn anything from it. Health is optional in my school. I first heard about periods near the end of 10th grade (don’t know how since I have 2 older sisters) when my bio teacher decided to talk about the menstral cycle for discussing how hormones work. I’m taking anatomy next year, so hopefully that doesn’t give me nightmares...

[Laplace]

Since reading science encyclopedias was a hobby when I was really young (I was weird), I was pretty much years ahead of my peers in terms of understanding human reproduction. Back then, I thought it was just kinda weird people would get even remotely excited about organs that were also used to expel waste from; it seemed kinda gross that you’d make a baby with some of the same organs you took went to the bathroom with.

 

Apropos of absolutely nothing, I was talking to some clan mates in a game and we were joking about selling items like bathwater and underwear to fund purchasing games. Of course, it’s weird and arguably creepy for people to buy that stuff, even by the standards of many sexual people, but I feel like if I could make a profit from it, I’d totally do it largely because I give no ***** about the sexual element to it. My aceness makes it easier to ignore that stuff. 😅

[Aloney]

12 hours ago, Toa Lhikan said:

This is probably the weirdest thing I will ever write. I had a kind of ace moment a month ago while a microscope workshop about fungi. At some point there was a fungus called Cercospora beticola (see spoiler box), belonging to the group of the fungi imperfecti (= incomplete fungi). Cercospora beticola is an "ace" because it only produces asexual conidia and no sexual spores. 

 

Despite being a fungus, Cercospora beticola is also called incomplete (like aces) because of lacking sexual reproduction. I find it interesting that these norms apply to asexual fungi as well. Science seems always to value asexuality as inferior in a biological context. Maybe because of anthropocentrism but I'm not sure about that.

 

Oddly enough,I have some sympathy for Cercospora beticola because it is asexual and because it doesn't have such a ridiculous complicated reproduction cycle like most fungi.

 

  Hide contents

 

Ohhh, fungus biology! I'm a biologist myself 😂 But yeah, I can see the allegory and the joke (That's why my sexuality typing in the description has a tiny plant after asexual 😂)

11 hours ago, Jona Rhys said:

This is just about reproduction though. If I remember my biology lessons correctly (help me, scientifically educated people!), sexual reproduction offers some kind of advantage because two types of DNA are combined to form a new one.

Humans can't reproduce asexually. Us asexuals are regarded as inferior because we don't want to reproduce at all. I don't think calling Cercospore beticola incomplete has anything to do with anthropocentrism.

Yeah, I think they meant it as an indirect comparison or a joke, but yes, sexual reproduction introduces new types of viable combinations, while asexual reproduction is literally duplicating yourself and creating a clone, thus all the variations come from unexpected mutations. Sexual reproduction is far more variable and allows easier evolution towards adapting to different surrounding conditions, also, the whole population is less likely to die off once a pathogen is introduced, if they have such variation. 

10 hours ago, will123 said:

I recall asexual animals (hydras?) being mentioned in Grade 9 biology ('75/'76). That was my only exposure to the word until I read about asexuality in 2005.

Yeah, it's possible, but those animals are usually microscopic micro-organisms or not very complex. There's some interesting exceptions, though, for example, this one species of lizards apparently only has females left, but the females are capable of laying eggs that hatch with a genetically identical offspring = they're basically cloning themselves, which is how asexual reproduction works. Those lizards still apparently need a faux sex act with another female to actually conceive the egg, though. But in general, the bigger and more complex the organism, more difficult asexual reproduction gets. We do renew our cells in our bodies all the time, but cloning ourselves without ethically questionable help from science is quite impossible :'D 

[Bronztrooper]

1 hour ago, Aloney said:

Yeah, I think they meant it as an indirect comparison or a joke, but yes, sexual reproduction introduces new types of viable combinations, while asexual reproduction is literally duplicating yourself and creating a clone, thus all the variations come from unexpected mutations. Sexual reproduction is far more variable and allows easier evolution towards adapting to different surrounding conditions, also, the whole population is less likely to die off once a pathogen is introduced, if they have such variation. 

This makes me think back to an alien race from a game series I've played a lot (the Asari from Mass Effect to be specific).  The way they reproduce is a form of asexual reproduction, but they still require a 'partner' (basically, they have extreme control over their nervous system due to an element (element zero) that is very abundant on their homeworld (which is also the basis of the majority of tech in the galaxy), and this allows them to 'meld' their nervous systems with their partners in order to acquire their genetic traits.  This can be done without physical contact and with any sapient species, though many still engage in 'sex' (I have a bit of a headcanon that their views on what is considered to be 'sex' depends on whether or not melding was involved, but that's a discussion for another thread)- regardless, the child is always asari.  Because of that, culturally, melding with other species is more acceptable than melding within their species due to the view that with the latter, nothing is 'gained' for their species (and only pureblood children can develop a genetic disease that makes the melding process deadly for the 'partner' by violently overloading their nervous system, which is actually an addictive experience for the pureblood).

 

1 hour ago, Aloney said:

Yeah, it's possible, but those animals are usually microscopic micro-organisms or not very complex. There's some interesting exceptions, though, for example, this one species of lizards apparently only has females left, but the females are capable of laying eggs that hatch with a genetically identical offspring = they're basically cloning themselves, which is how asexual reproduction works. Those lizards still apparently need a faux sex act with another female to actually conceive the egg, though. But in general, the bigger and more complex the organism, more difficult asexual reproduction gets. We do renew our cells in our bodies all the time, but cloning ourselves without ethically questionable help from science is quite impossible :'D 

And this reminds me of another race in the same series (Salarians).  Basically, they're an amphibious race that breeds quickly and has a short life span (all due to an extremely hyper-active metabolism).  The females of this species are relatively rare (by the standards of most other races in-game) and that's due to how their reproduction works.  Females lay hundreds of eggs at a time (iirc), which are all males when they hatch.  Females are only 'hatched' from fertilized eggs, but since members of the species technically don't need to 'mate' to reproduce, they are very much asexual like we are, and thus treat 'mating' as more of thing for political alliances between families (basically imagine feudal houses and how they'd 'secure alliances').

 

Yeah, very off-topic, but I felt it was something interesting to toss in 

[griffinej5]

So, I went to the dermatologist this morning, and they handed me some sample medicine. I checked the website for this stuff, and it says females of child bearing age must obtain a negative pregnancy test and use effective birth control while on this medication. 

Either this woman isn’t doing her due diligence, or I don’t look like a person for whom that would be a concern. Their patient portal allows a lot of options to choose from for sexuality, but asexual isn’t there. I think I have other selected, but I didn’t write something in. So... assumption or possible danger to other patients?

[Custard Cream]

1 hour ago, griffinej5 said:

So, I went to the dermatologist this morning, and they handed me some sample medicine. I checked the website for this stuff, and it says females of child bearing age must obtain a negative pregnancy test and use effective birth control while on this medication. 

Either this woman isn’t doing her due diligence, or I don’t look like a person for whom that would be a concern. Their patient portal allows a lot of options to choose from for sexuality, but asexual isn’t there. I think I have other selected, but I didn’t write something in. So... assumption or possible danger to other patients?

Yikes. She should have mentioned that regardless of your stated sexuality, just as a matter of due diligence 

[will123]

@griffinej5

 

About portals, this isnt't an ace moment but I was filling out a market survey last summer and 'asexual' WAS a choice for sexual preference. 

[Comrade F&F]

My friend and I were watching some of the swimmers in the pool:

 

Friend: "Oh wow...the abs on that guy."

Me: *mentally calculating the velocity of the swimmer based on the estimated length of the pool to determine his theoretical lung capacity* Huh?

 

Listen, the guy made five laps without coming up for air. That caught my eye. Not his abs.

[Zachary Hurst]

On 4/26/2019 at 12:07 PM, sups1992 said:

Yeah I have taken this Rice Purity Test too. it's quite awesome.

Yeah, I take this too. And I got 82 Rice Purity Test Score. I am pure or not?

[AceMissBehaving]

45 minutes ago, Zachary Hurst said:

Yeah, I take this too. And I got 82 Rice Purity Test Score. I am pure or not?

Took it out of curiosity just now and got a whopping 54 so I guess I'm socially awkward and depraved?

[Aloney]

I am confused about this test 😅 So... If there's a hundred questions then I guess I got 83..? Also, the questions are kind of making me cringe at the memories attached to the checked boxes. I mean, I am an adult and can consume alcohol sometimes? And then, things like skinny dipping and such is perfectly innocent (usually) where I live, if you do it with your friends (of same sex)? Aaaannd... the less "innocent" checked boxes are just... aaagghhh, I don't want to remember that shiz, and my "experiences" are seriously limited at two random guys when I was "experimenting" (and I didn't even bed them!) and then with my group of friends when we, uhm, decided to platonically try kissing and giving each other hickeys and it was at the same time the most awkward thing ever, but also my best experience in this topic, since there were no expectations or strings attached..? Whyyyyy is this making me think about these memories now I'm anxious 😂😭

[AceMissBehaving]

39 minutes ago, Aloney said:

I am confused about this test 😅 So... If there's a hundred questions then I guess I got 83..? Also, the questions are kind of making me cringe at the memories attached to the checked boxes. I mean, I am an adult and can consume alcohol sometimes? And then, things like skinny dipping and such is perfectly innocent (usually) where I live, if you do it with your friends (of same sex)? Aaaannd... the less "innocent" checked boxes are just... aaagghhh, I don't want to remember that shiz, and my "experiences" are seriously limited at two random guys when I was "experimenting" (and I didn't even bed them!) and then with my group of friends when we, uhm, decided to platonically try kissing and giving each other hickeys and it was at the same time the most awkward thing ever, but also my best experience in this topic, since there were no expectations or strings attached..? Whyyyyy is this making me think about these memories now I'm anxious 😂😭

So turns out each box ticked is a point off, so ticking zero boxes would score you 100 points, and ticking say 80 off would score you 20 points. It seems rather confusing for no good reason 

[Liana]

Ah, the Rice Purity Test. I remember almost nobody in 10th grade believing me when I got a 100 on that test, or that I didn’t know what half of the stuff on it meant... Most people that I asked then said that they got a 98, one girl that I was friends with got a 99 for hand holding. I remember when I was talking about it in my Algebra 2 class with a friend, a girl near us heard what we were talking about and said that she had a 70 something, but her bf and her had gotten a condom and that she’s hoping to lower her score 🤮🤮. One girl said that all guys masturbate (I didn’t know what that word meant yet, but I’ve never) and she had a 26. Somehow there’s someone in my grade with a 5 on it.

[I, Joan]

Freshman in high school and I’ve scored an eleven lol. I’m proud of that. 

[SupercalifragilisticNugget]

Any fellow 100s out there? (･_･;

[ColeHW34]

Never heard of it in middle or high school because I guess I'm too low risk and very reserved.

But I took it and got 100.

[I, Joan]

Ah crap I may have reversed the numbers lol. Ignore my previous post, I only checked eleven boxes.....

-sigh- I love being clueless. 

[Anthracite_Impreza]

Am I being thick here? I can't find the questions for it at all. Also, reading that site made me exclaim "What a load of bollocks", so I daresay they'll score me lowly

[Aloney]

Yeah I checked... seventeen boxes..? Why is this a thing, really? Especially if it's given to high-schoolers? 😧 Like, shaming young, insecure people? There are other ways to inform young people about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and to be careful with intimacy and stuff..? I've never seen this test before :'D