Article on bthesite.com

[solitude]

I found this article today by doing a Google blog search on asexuality:

Asexual awakening: Growing visibility, community help some find their voice

It's a positive article and it mentions a number of asexual blogs/sites as well.

 

 

2017 Edit: The above link doesn't work anymore, but the article can be found here. For future reference:

 

Asexual awakening: Growing visibility, community help some find their voice

by Jordan Bartel | March 1, 2010 at 9:33 pm 
Posted in Lifestyles, b the paper, love, news, sex

 

(Left to right) Neil Bollington, 42, from Springfield, Va.; Roger Fox, 26, from Rockville; Mark Smith, 21, in South Korea (via skype on laptop); and group organizer, Jessica Sawicki, 27, of Germantown meet at a Rockville restaurant for an Asexuals of the Mid-Atlantic meetup. {DAVID STUCK, SPECIAL TO B}
 

 

They said she was just a waste of life.

All because Lauren Pierce wasn’t showing interest in dating, in relationships, in kissing.

She heard this from classmates in middle school and high school. In eighth grade, it seemed everyone was dating. Pierce wasn’t, and that was strange and inexcusable. Such a waste.

“It really became a problem because people started making it a problem,” said Pierce, a 21-year-old junior at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Pierce just knew that she had no interest in dating or sex. She called herself “anti-sexual” until the 10th grade, when she first heard the word “asexual.”


After a teacher told her that she might be asexual, Pierce searched online for “asexuality” and found AVEN, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network.

It was there, at asexuality.org, that Pierce first read the definition of “asexual” — a person who does not experience sexual attraction.

“I was like, ‘This is nice,’” said Pierce, “It was refreshing, it wasn’t an issue for me anymore. I felt instantly that I had a right to be at this place, to be me.”

Pierce says this with a quiet confidence that blankets years of torment. She had always heard she was different because of who she was, and she never had understood what she was.

She thought she was alone.

NOW YOU SEE US
In just under a decade, asexuality has gone from something unspoken to something shared on a daily basis. At asexuality.org, nearly 40,000 registered members flood an ever-growing list of forums. There, dozens of forums provide general information on asexuality, plus places to showcase poetry and talk anything non-asexual (example: “What made you laugh today?”). At the “AVEN online visibility store,” people can buy shirts that say “Asexuals Party Hardest.”

“First, it’s just knowing you’re OK,” said David Jay, who in 2001 founded the Web site that morphed into AVEN the following year. “It’s just having someone to say, ‘This doesn’t mean you’re broken’.”

Jay, 27, came out as asexual when he was a freshman at Wesleyan. Now a graduate student in San Francisco, he has spent years traveling across the country as the unofficial face of asexuality, giving talks and appearing on national media outlets. Now, it’s not uncommon for Jay to mention asexuality and find that someone has heard about it. “Even if people haven’t heard it, they now know it exists in the world,” Jay said. “It’s a concept out there now, a population.”

From AVEN have sprung dozens of asexuality-themed social networking and personals sites, such as Acebook and Asexualitic, popular blogs (Ace of Hearts) and niche sites (Asexual Lesbians). Asexuals are now coming together in person. They need each other.

SHARED EXPERIENCE
The Asexuals of the Mid-Atlantic sat in the Rockville chain cafe toward the back, near the bathrooms. They took up a whole table, surrounded by booths where people ate lunch hunched over their laptops. This is the kind of place the group, organized through meetup.com, has gotten together at for a year. Fewer than 10 of the 40 members meet regularly to talk about asexuality. “We had been thinking all our lives that we’ve been weird,” said 27-year-old Jessica Sawicki of Germantown, the group’s lead organizer. “But we can now share our same experiences.”

The Asexuals of the Mid-Atlantic relate to each other in a way they are unable to with other friends. At the beginning, they talked about how it felt to be asexual — “lonely, sad,” said group member Roger Fox, 26.
“I talked about how I always felt something was just not right. Just not natural,” said group member Neil Bollington, 42, from Springfield, Va. “I wrote on our Web site that, in a relationship, having sex felt like being raped and groped. I found asexuality and found myself.”

After a slew of meetings, which usually take place on weekends in or around the D.C. area, they’ve become a family — supportive, attentive and jokingly playful.

After Sawicki said, “It’s nice to know there’s other people like me,” Bollington instantly responded, “Oh God, I hope not,” with a hearty laugh.

“There’s no pressure to discuss anything sexual,” said group member Eavan Moore, 24, a freelance writer from Kensington. “It’s nice to finally be in an environment where you know no one is looking for a date or flirting.”

“We needed each other more than we knew,” said Bollington. There were collective nods and small smiles.

STUDY NEEDED
Researchers have just begun devoting studies to asexuality. Some have said it doesn’t exist, that it is against nature to not inherently feel sexual attraction; others say they wouldn’t be surprised at all that it is real. Some have speculated that asexuality is a result of sexual traumatic past, hormonal imbalance or other disorders. The most common misconception is that asexuality is the same thing as celibacy. But asexuals say that this is not a deliberate suppression of sexual desire. They just never felt sexual. They’re fine with that.

“Very few people come to us and say, ‘I’m an asexual. Treat me,’” said Dr. Chris Kraft, the co-director of clinical services at Johns Hopkins’ Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit. Kraft, who addresses asexuality in the human sexuality classes he teaches at Hopkins’ Homewood campus, said disagreements about asexuality come from the general lack of knowledge about it.

He said asexuality is often confused with — or linked to — hypoactive sexual desire disorder, or extremely low sex drive. “It would be interesting to explore just how [asexuality] manifests itself,” he said.

PERSONAL JOURNEYS
Within the asexual community, there are those who simply never were interested in sex and those, such as Asexuals of the Mid-Atlantic member Bollington, who felt extreme aversion to the act.
Some asexuals masturbate, some do not, according to AVEN. There are those who want to be in relationships — minus the sex — and get married and have a family. There are those who don’t even want to kiss.
Fellow member Sawicki has dated both sexes. Pierce dates, too, though rarely. And her relationships often last just a few months. “There’s hand-holding, touching, but never anything beyond that,” Pierce said. “It always ends up as two people not going in the same direction.”

While Pierce’s sexual journey was dotted with devastating harassment, other journeys have been less dramatic. Sawicki went through the motions of dating guys in high school. “I dated this guy who was so pretty, with long hair. Making out, it felt so boring. I told myself, ‘Once I have sex, I will like it.’”

Sawicki is now at ease when she talks to people about her asexuality. Others, like fellow group member Fox, haven’t told their parents yet. He still finds it hard to use the word asexual. But Fox is convinced that this is who he is. “Is there any single characteristic in humans that is 100 percent universal?” he asked, his voice raised in frustration.

There are asexuals who marry, usually to other asexuals. Keith Walker, the 36-year-old administrator of Olympia, Wash.-based apositive.org, is married to an asexual woman he met on AVEN. Walker said he was broken and sad 10 years ago. He discussed his feelings with doctors and was met with shrugs. He lost his virginity in college because “people were worried.” “I’m finally honest with myself,” he said. “The world has become a far less dark place.”

For Pierce, there’s always potential for awkward situations. When she watches TV or movies with friends and there’s any kind of sexual content, Pierce’s friends look at her to gauge reaction. Pierce leans on her best friend for support. He understands asexuality.

“In a way, it’s exciting to be asexual,” Pierce said. “You’re constantly learning new things about yourself.”

COMING OUT
Ashley Vinck did something she felt she had to do. The 18-year-old Sacramento City College student had seen a TV special on asexuality when she was 15. “I promised myself that when I turned 18 I would go to AVEN’s Web site and create a profile to inject myself into the asexual community,” she said via e-mail.

Vinck, who grew up in small, liberal Davis, Calif., hasn’t told her mom yet. But her closest friends know she’s asexual. None of them knew what it meant. “Either they had questions and were generally supportive, or they believe it is just a phase and I have not found the right person,” Vinck said.

Asexuals particularly resent this second reaction, and most of them have heard it. “People used to tell me I just haven’t had good sex yet,” said Sawicki. “Or I heard that God gives the need for sex to everyone.”
Sawicki, a customer service rep for a pharmaceutical company, came out a few months after she started to identify as asexual. “You’re admitting something extremely rough,” she said. “At that time, you’re telling people that you feel you aren’t normal.”

Still, Sawicki said she’s had more positive than negative reactions from people. Jay struggled for five years to talk about his asexuality openly. “I was 13 when I started thinking about asexuality and me,” he said. “Until AVEN, people haven’t had a safe place to tell people. You try and go to your friend, and in many cases they laugh in your face or stare blankly.” When Pierce told her parents, they thought it was a phase, like her vegetarianism. She has since given two talks on MICA’s campus about asexuality.

When Eavan Moore, shy and soft-spoken, realized she was asexual, she went home and “stewed for a bit.” When she told her mom, she took her to the gynecologist to see if anything was physically wrong.
“It’s not something I want to tell everyone,” she said. “It’s like saying, ‘Hi, I’m weird.’”

MOVING FORWARD
There has been no giant march for asexual rights. There are no laws against asexuality that are discriminatory. The movement is simply in people telling their stories. The “asexuality movement,” said Jay, is fundamentally about people finding themselves and hanging out together.

The growing asexual community heightens visibility, and vice versa. “Nestled within that are people who are passionate about educating others,” Jay said. “And there’s still a sense that there’s asexual people out there who don’t understand themselves. That’s what keeps me and others going.”

Among the Asexuals of the Mid-Atlantic meetings there’s hope and solidarity. “There’s a foundation built from AVEN,” said group member Bollington. “And now we just know that there’s asexuals not just in D.C., Virginia and in Maryland, but there’s an asexual blog written by a girl in Scotland.”

Despite her budding outspokenness and comfort from friends, Pierce at times feels alone. Asexuality has been defining her relationship with her parents. She wants to call them when she meets someone special, which she hasn’t done.

“I want to just call my mom and say, ‘Hey, I’m hanging out with so-and-so.’ I would just have to sit them down and explain it,” she said. “I’d say, ‘Look, this is me. This is how I feel. And I’m not feeling bad about it.’”

Jordan Bartel is assistant editor at b. Contact him at jordan@bthesite.com

Resources/asexuality links

The Asexual Visibility and Education Network, AVEN:
asexuality.org

Asexuals of the Mid-Atlantic:
meetup.com/A-Mid-A

Ace of Hearts:
frogthis.com/ace-of-hearts

asexy beast:
theonepercentclub.blogspot.com

Apositive:
apositive.org

Asexual Explorations:
asexualexplorations.net

Glad to be A:
glad-to-be-a.livejournal.com

Love from the Asexual Underground:
asexualunderground.blogspot.com

Acebook:
ace-book.net

Asexualitic:
asexualitic.com
 

Edited April 2, 2017 by ithaca

[HeidiUK]

Thank you for sharing.

H xx

[Axalotl]

A very positive article.

I enjoyed this. Thanks.

[PiF]

bloody good find

i think this shows more than anything the way we are being seen more is at out pace and in a steady direction

i understand the gay pride and in your face worked for lgbt and fair play to them

but i do feel in general asexuals are slightly more reserved and the stealth way we are approaching awareness is more in line with our membership