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Asexuality Profile Piece on me :)


SpirallingSnowy

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SpirallingSnowy

A while ago, i recieved a contact from a uni student on exchange at Sydney Uni - and she wanted to do a profile piece on me for her class - and she wanted to do it on Asexuality. So today she emailed me a copy of the profile piece, and i thought i would share it with you guys... She said the class was very receptive about the piece :D

The missing element - Isabel Steffens

"It's not that I am a starfish. I know how to play the game. I just don't really like the game." The game that brings two people physically as close as possible makes the world go 'round—but not Gemma’s world. Gemma F doesn’t care much about sex. I meet her in a clean university study room with white walls and grey tables, not knowing what to expect—but when Gemma enters the room, I am a bit surprised: She just looks—normal. Wearing loose-fitting blue jeans and a low-cut

purple shirt, Gemma looks neither like a wallflower nor a fashion victim, but rather as the girl next door you want to be friends with. Embarrassed by my own stereotyped expectation, I invite Gemma to sit down on one of those twenty identical chairs, where she starts talking immediately. It does not

seem awkward for her at all to speak about what happens in her bed—or rather what doesn’t happen. "I don't find sex that interesting. I have better things to do with my time", the 28-year-old medical science student from Sydney says. Her voice is warm and vivacious, and the confidence in it reveals she must have enunciated these lines many times before.

The lack of sexual interest is commonly known as an indicator for illness or a physical disorder. However, since a few years this is changing to the belief that permanent asexuality is just another sexual orientation. The 2001-founded international web community AVEN (The Asexuality Visibility and Education Network) defines an asexual person as someone who does not experience sexual attraction. That is distinct from a behavioural sexual abstention. "People confuse asexuality

with celibacy. But no, I don't actually want to be asexual. There is just one element missing, and that is the desire to get naked with someone", Gemma says. She is a moderator on AVEN since four years. In this role, she helped building an Australian sub-forum and has become a sort of spokesperson for Australian asexuals. In Sydney, they meet once a month, with 17 people showing

up at the moment. They go to pubs, drink some beers, or have a blast doing karaoke. They don’t talk about sex at all—these conversations stay on the web. “Meeting AVEN people is much more relaxing, there is no checking-out. It’s like a little hub where I can get away from sex and all that stuff.”

Scientists estimate that one per cent of the population is asexual. There are two classes of asexuals: repulsed and indifferent. That is, some asexuals are repulsed by sex and not willing to become physical with anyone. Others are indifferent to sex and possibly willing to enter a sexual relationship for the sake of another person. "Some of the asexuals say that they don't wanna sleep with anybody. I used to be like that when I first worked out that I was asexual. But because of the

relationships I have had since and also because I noted my own behaviour, I'm much more compromising than other asexuals. If it feels good, I go with it", says Gemma.

A lack of sexual attraction does not come hand in hand with a lack of emotional attraction. Even asexuals who are far more against sex than Gemma wish for relationships—even if these are purely romantic. "Think of cliché romance in movies and stuff—that's me. But I don't want to have my relationship defined by sex. I want to get to know people, chill out on the couch—and it's not about

sexual positions", Gemma says. Because emotional attraction exists, some scientists suggest defining asexuality rather as the opposite of sexuality than as an alternative concept to heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality. Correspondingly, there are heteroromantic or homoromantic asexuals besides complete aromantic persons. What might sound confusing, is in Gemma's case the following: "I am visually attracted to guys, so I know I am not a lesbian. But still,I am not that attracted to guys that I want to sleep with everyone of them."

In a sense, it is not surprising that asexuality lacks the public awareness other sexual orientations have. If there is nothing going on, there is nothing to be talked about. Wrong, says Gemma. She is bothered by the fact that asexuality is kept so quiet in society. With her voice turning loud and her

gestures becoming twitchy, you can see that this issue makes her extremely emotional. "The reason I feel that we need to tell people about asexuality is because there are probably other people who will see our perspective about sex. They may not necessarily feel it themselves, but the perspective will make sense to them."

Gemma is involved with AVEN's project team that organises events and activities to make asexuality more visible, hoping that it will become as accepted as other sexual orientations one day. In August, Gemma held a speech on asexuality at Macquarie University; at the moment she is mobilising Sydney's asexual community to participate in the 2011 Mardi Gras Festival. Besides local events there are also worldwide activities: AVEN announced the last week of September as

Asexual Awareness Week and invited its members to promote asexuality by posting articles and notes on Twitter and Facebook. Some members even used the awareness week to come out to family and friends.

Anthony Bogaert, psychologist at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, is one of the few scientists researching on asexuality. He got in touch with the topic accidentally: When reading a survey about the sexual life of 18,000 British residents, he was astonished that one in hundred ticked the response

option "I have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all". Bogaert searched for characteristics asexuals have in common. He identified that women are more often affected than men and that there may be a correlation between short body height and asexuality. "This suggests that there may be a number of independent developmental pathways, perhaps both biological and psychosocial,

leading to asexuality", Bogaert argues.

Even if the issue is becoming more noted, there are still many people who never heard of asexuality. "There might be people out there, who feel the same way as we do, but they don't know the name for it", Gemma says. At least that was the case for herself, what explains her commitment to promote visibility. She first came to AVEN because a friend showed the website to her. "I was like: Oh, that's cool, what is asexuality?" The more she read and the more perspectives she saw, Gemma

realised that she fitted in. "That was very liberating. I finally had a word to describe what I felt."

Gemma has now given herself the asexual label for the last four years—even though she already felt in high school that she was different. But the 28-year-old came out to most of her friends and family members only around a year ago. Before that she told only her mother that she was asexual.

In 2009, Gemma was contacted on AVEN and asked about doing a feature about asexuality on ABC2's Triple J TV. "When I did the TV stuff, Mum made it my dad watch it." It was a pretty awkwardsituation for Gemma: “My dad didn't get it very well. He just said: 'Whatever, Gem is doing her thing', blah blah blah.” However, Gemma posted the video on Facebook. "The amount of people that came back to me saying that they were proud of me for going out and saying that stuff was

overwhelming. And they actually understood me."

Her coming-out, the support of her friends, and her commitment to AVEN have made Gemma’s opinion on the "whole sex thing" so strong that she doesn’t have the slightest reservation to talk to a complete stranger like me about her sexual life. But she has not always been so confident about herself. She had her first boyfriend when she was 16; he was two years younger than her. She liked

kissing, hugging, cuddling - but nothing going beyond that. "Even when I was 18 and he was 16, he was too pushy-sexual for me", she says. To actually want a sexual life is expected not only by family and friends. It is also something to define oneself. Growing up in a society where sex is almost everywhere, people who do not experience a sexual drive feel under pressure. Being in

search for the "right" label, asexuals often suffer from low self-esteem because they feel that they do not fit in any of the given categories. Lastly, it is easier to pretend to be like everybody else.

"There are people who think sex is gross, but they do it because it is socially expected. If I can help only one of them to feel more happy and comfortable with their sexuality, then I've done my job", Gemma says.

Asking Gemma what she says to people who think asexuality is no sexual orientation she answers:"I say: Straight people have a gender they are not interested in. Gay people have a gender they are not interested in. Bi people are interested in both genders. So somebody has to be interested in neither."

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*applauds* I too shall give you (and the author of the article) some :cake: :)

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carried in bags

a well written piece. :cake: to you both

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