Famous and Historical Asexuals

[borrowedTime]

I'm telling ya, HC Andersen was asexual!

Well, he's on the list already.

Did he himself say he was asexual? If so, you can move him up to the 'confirmed' list.

[Monkeyless]

I did art history at school and one of the artist we studied was Andy Warhol. Who we learnt was Asexual. This was a huge part of our writings, because alot of his works done in the "factory" was based or inspired by his Asexuality.

[Toiletman]

I have two possible candidates we cannot be proud of:

The first and relativly harmless one was Maximillian Robbespierre who one if not the leader of the french revolution.He was promised to a woman but it's reported that he had never had any sexual interest in her or in people generally.

The second one is one of the most cruel person of the last century,Adolf Hitler.Historians couldn't find out that he ever was interested in any sexual interaction and trust me,we get bombed with the private life of hitler in germany.Although he married Eva Braun in his last days his private secretary in the führerbunker said that he wasn't sexually interested in her at all.

[Damien Day]

I have two possible candidates we cannot be proud of:

The first and relativly harmless one was Maximillian Robbespierre who one if not the leader of the french revolution.He was promised to a woman but it's reported that he had never had any sexual interest in her or in people generally.

The second one is one of the most cruel person of the last century,Adolf Hitler.Historians couldn't find out that he ever was interested in any sexual interaction and trust me,we get bombed with the private life of hitler in germany.Although he married Eva Braun in his last days his private secretary in the führerbunker said that he wasn't sexually interested in her at all.

I doubt very much indeed whether either was even remotely asexual - the likelihood is they both led perfectly average heterosexual sex-lives, like the vast majority of the population. Such myths remind me of the old urban legend that Catherine the Great was supposed to have died while being penetrated by a horse - absolute rubbish, of course, there's no evidence for it at all.

I think it's risky to state that specific historical characters were asexual, unless we definitely know that to be the case(eg:- Nikola Tesla).

[Tigoness]

Anyone yet mentioned Stephen Fry? ...Is is he too obviously asexaual. :P

[Toiletman]

I doubt very much indeed whether either was even remotely asexual - the likelihood is they both led perfectly average heterosexual sex-lives, like the vast majority of the population. Such myths remind me of the old urban legend that Catherine the Great was supposed to have died while being penetrated by a horse - absolute rubbish, of course, there's no evidence for it at all.

Well it's hard to say whether Robbespierre eventually was it or not since his life isn't as known as for example Hitler's is.For Hitler it's quite sure that he atleast never had any relationship but he doesn't nacessarily is asexual he could also have had some kind of sexual disorder or fear.

[Damien Day]

Given Eva Braun, and the fact that no one was exactly present in the bedroom at all times to know fully what was going on(!), I somehow doubt Hitler was asexual. It sounds just as dubious as another idea that Hitler was a homosexual. I think that the reason why people try to portray Hitler/Stalin etc. as asexual/homosexual, is simply that they don't like the idea of abnormal villains of history having a so-called "normal" sex-life like everyone else, they would rather the dictator in question belonged to what is seen as a (so-called)"deviant" sexuality by the vast majority - as such, they prefer a Freudian interpretation and, as we all know by now from Eysenck and others, Freud's theories were complete bunk.

[Toiletman]

...

Well German historians have mostly the same opinion that he was defenetly not "normal" heterosexual.The only woman he had atleast a deeper emotional relationship with was his niece who eventually killed herself even before Hitler came to power.It's unquestioned that his relationship to Eva Braun,who tried to kill herself several times in this relationship,wasn't of any sexual or deeper emotional nature.So the possibilities are that he was either asexual,repressed hetero/homo or had some strange fetish.

[Prentice]

Alexandra David-Neel

French explorator, writer, orientalist, opera singer, journalist, etc.

yes, she was married, but...

check her life and work : there's plenty o' stuff on the Internet.

I won't start writing in details about her here, for fear it might become ranty and boring (this woman is really an ICON for me).

discover her !

you won't regret it.

she was definitely asexual.

[TeddyMiller]

Here's something about Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu, who might a candidate for the asexual celebrity list:

http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/donald_richie.shtml

"It's funny that Ozu's films were all about family, but he lived with his mother all his life. He never married at all.

Well, all the better to watch families then, maybe. He didn't have to endure them. But its absolutely true. He lived with his mother, and in fact she died only two or three years before he did. He was never romantically linked. He had a lot of girl friends, but I think they treated him in a fairly avuncular manner - Uncle Ozu. I don't think anyone put her legs together when he came in the room. There's a lot of great creators like this. I don't know this, but I've heard that there was something vaguely asexual about Ozu. They're very common, people like that. They are so into their work that they don't concern themselves with that. Whatever fun they get from sex has already been sublimated into their work. I know several people like that. I don't mean that he didn't have an emotional life but it wasn't on that level. He had very, very close friends. He use to hang around with literary people. His cameraman he was very close to. A couple of actresses - he was obviously very close to Hara Setsuko. He led a very active social life."

[Erita]

(I originally posted this at the "Philosophy 'n Politcs" page, but was directed here.)

I've been thinking about where I heard about asexuals and asexuality before discovering this site. I love biographies, and I just realized that one of my favourite composers, Maurice Ravel (the one who wrote "Bolero") was probably one of us. He was passionate about his music, about beauty in general, and had many dear friends, but apparently there was never any evidence of his having sex with anyone, male or female. He doesn't seem to have been a closet homosexual (which is a question you always have to ask about people who live in homophobic times and places) - he just wasn't interested in sex, period.

[Erita]

Dame Barbara Cartland :cake:

English romance novelist (1901-2000)

"She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and specialized in romantic novels which contained no sex and in which the beautiful, innocent heroine was swept off her feet by the tall, handsome hero to get married and live happily ever after.

It doesn't sound as if the writer of this quote ever read any Barbara Cartland novels. Her couples may not have sex until their wedding night, but then they certainly do (though Cartland's language was much different from romance novels nowadays)! We have to remember that in her time, "respectable" young women were brought up as ignorant about sex as possible. In a variation on your story, according to her autobiography, she didn't know where babies came from until a boyfriend explained it to her in her early twenties, and she was so disgusted that she refused to see him again. She was disappointed by her first wedding night (to her alcoholic first husband), but then said she did start to enjoy sex with her second husband, so with her it really was a matter of waiting for the right man (and maturity, perhaps) to come along, so I don't think you can count her as a lifelong asexual.

Barbara Cartland is not the only one I've come across who said this. The actress Cornelia Otis Skinner, who also came of age in the 1920s, wrote that at 20 she only had the vaguest idea of where babies came from, though she ended up trying to explain the facts of life to a friend who knew even less than she did. She then went on to praise the increased openness her own children (growing up in the 1940s?) enjoyed. I don't think we can automatically equate a restricted upbringing with asexuality, though I think there is a link for many people.

[Erita]

Actually we've had gone over this before. Elizabeth I had numerous affairs with various lovers. I think rumour has it she was infertile(from some disease) so she could get away with it.The only reason why she never married was that if she had done so, ALL her power would go over to her husband. That's why the kings of Spain and France were desperate for her to marry them or their relatives(in this case the king of Spain, and the Duke of Anjou respectively).If that had happened, England would have become part of Spain or France. She also pretended to be a virgin,

because her unavailability encouraged her men at court to idolise her,

Strontium Dog

Sorry to disagree with you, but according to Alison Weir's extensive biography of Elizabeth I, there is no evidence that she ever had sex with anyone. She certainly had her favourites, but as she said herself, she lived her life in public - there was always *somebody* watching her, and if there had been any hint of her having an affair, her many enemies would have pounced on it (there were many rumours going around about her anyway, as you point out). This doesn't make her asexual, just celibate - she simply made a virtue of necessity. As you say, she had strong political reasons for staying single, and she also had the memory of her stepmother, Jane Seymour, who died in childbirth.

[alepunk]

is interesting that salvador dali was asexual because his paintings were....kind of sexual........

[crazyjerseygirl]

Alan Rickman :cake:

(1946- )

British stage and screen actor. His films include Dogma, Love Actually, Galaxy Quest, Blow Dry, Robin Hood and the Harry Potter series. His first love, however, is the stage.

Many fellow actors have suggested that Rickman is disinterested in women sexually, and lacks an interest in sex in general. Further proof of this is displayed in his protest to performing several sexually suggestive scenes in the movie Mesmer . The movie, after Rickman’s 57 edits (only one of which not pertaining to removal of sexual content) left his character, critics say, seeming “aloof and asexual”.

This might explain my inane crush on alan rickman!

i always wondered why i crushed on a man who played such asexual roles!

and now i know why

*swoons*

TTFN

Renee'

[alepunk]

Wow, how interesting is to see how easy it is to make the wrong asumpmtions about artists or people in general........for example Dali, by the way he looked i would assume he was very eccentric, promiscuous, bisexual ( not that that's bad) but the last thing on my mind would be to think he was asexual...............I do know he was a friend of a spanish artist name Remedios Varo who was somewhat of a party animal (socialite)............

[sonofzeal]

I vote that Sir Isaac Newton be downgraded one or two cakes. I've heard tell that his private journals detail a struggle, if not with sexual desire/attraction, then at least with an active sex drive that he did his best to repress. And while that doesn't disprove anything, I think it casts sufficient doubt on whether he was celibate from inclination or from repression to downgrade his status.

Oh, and I'll nominate Lovecraft to the list at one status because, while he had a wife and there's little indication of marital discord/nonconsumation, the tone of his works is "almost pathologically asexual" in its avoidance of sensuality of any sort. Which is why movie adaptations of his stuff that include a central romance and a bit of skin always feel so out of place to those who've read the book.

[alepunk]

i'd say two cakes, anyone who's asexual by repression or couscious effort, is not asexual, is celibate by choice.............like being on a diet...wanting to eat that donut but not doing it.......heheh (sorry, just had to say that) :))

[sonofzeal]

i'd say two cakes, anyone who's asexual by repression or couscious effort, is not asexual, is celibate by choice.............like being on a diet...wanting to eat that donut but not doing it.......heheh (sorry, just had to say that) :))

Two cakes for Newton or for Lovecraft?

[alepunk]

i'd say take the cakes from Newton and give'em to Lovecraft........

[Children of the sloth]

is interesting that salvador dali was asexual because his paintings were....kind of sexual........

I have to agree. Everything I've read about him seems to indicate that he was pretty into that kind of stuff. (Not to mention his paintings. The surrealists were very 'free' in their attitudes towards sex.)

[Elizabeth I]

REGARDING CLIFF RICHARD....

These quotes are taken drectly from Chapter 6 of his book "Single Minded" which was published in 1988....

Page 79

For me, being single isnt a drag or a pressure. It doesn't cause dark depression or make me lie awake bemoaning what might have been. I really doubt if I'm a bundle of sexual hang-ups and frustrations.

Page 80

It's amazing how so many people's minds just can't grasp that asingle man or woman isn't necessarily inadequate, gay or abnormal, and that it's actually possible to persue a single lifestyle perfectly happily, healthily, and without experiencing apalling deprivation.

Page 87

Personally, I believe we underestimate the importance of strong friendship, and I know some people who would be almost embarrassed to refer to someone as "a good friend".

Society, they feel, is bound to read more into it than meets the eye. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that there's a tendency to steer away from deveoping deep, lasting and uncomplicated friendships. If that's true, we're the poorer for it.

Page 88

I have friends, male and female, whom I love - not in the physical, romantic sense, but with great affection, and certainly with deep trust.

One must keep in mind that this book was written well before folks who now identify as asexual discovered they were not the only one.

Sir Richard titled the entire book after the chapter that addresses his reasons for remaining single. I might add that he really never addressed the question of physical sexuality.

Lizzie

[zootopia]

I don't remember where I heard this, but I remember hearing something about Nietzsche never having sex. He died from syphilis, but suposedly he contracted it while being a nurse and was exposed to contaminated blood. My knowledge of Nietzche is very limited though.

There's also Queen Elizabeth I.

Nothing certain is known about Nietzsche regarding his syphilis, but it is certain that he was celibate for almost his whole mature life. He did have a chaste love affair with Lou Salome.