San Francisco Bay Guardian Alt-Sex column

[(SP)]

http://www.sfbg.com/39/05/x_alt_sex_column.html

How about a copy for the archives, no?

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By Andrea Nemerson

A-OK

DEAR READERS: I get a lot of questions from people suffering from hypoactive (low) sexual desire, and even more from people suffering from a partner's lack of interest. What all these people have in common is that one or both halves of the couple have defined this dearth as a problem. "Of course it's a problem!" you think. Well, for you, maybe, and for most, but people who treat or teach this stuff are forever explaining that not wanting or not being able to have sex (or orgasms, or erections ...) only counts as a dysfunction if it's actually making you unhappy. If you don't want any and are happy that way, what label do you get? Welcome to the new asexuality. It's an idea whose time has, if not come, at least arrived.

Actually being asexual is, of course, hardly new. Talking about it a lot, however, is new enough to have earned a big, splashy article in a recent New Scientist, "Glad to Be Asexual." Why now? Why are scientists and journalists suddenly studying and writing about people who are defined merely by what they don't do? (1) Everything else has been done, and (2) the Web.

Of course! Without asexuality.org or the (heh) Frigidarium (www.geocities.com/decussationofthepyramids/index.html) – slightly grim but informative sites with links to a discussion forum and the few other resources out there for don't-wannas – there would be no movement. After all, despite ubiquitous comparisons to the early days of gay rights, there are comparatively few asexuals, and they have far less motivation to gather in bars to ... what? Not go home with one another? Nope, this is a movement destined to be born online and nowhere else. Connection without physical contact, how much more A could you get?

It's often been noted that without the Web, stuffy-nose fanciers, gym-sock enthusiasts, and inflatophiles would still be suffering in lonely isolation and self-hatred, unaware they had thousands of co-fetishists out there just dying to exchange jpegs and exhortations to Weirdo Pride. You can see how the same would work for asexuality – how freakish must these folks have felt, never developing desperate adolescent crushes, spending their teen years not stealing porn, pretending to want to cop a feel, sniggering along dutifully at dirty jokes, all the while thinking, "I don't get it."

Imagine feeling that out of touch with your fellow humans and never being able to tell anyone without fear of approbation or, worse, pity. Frankly, I can. I imagine most asexuals feeling about sex the way I do about two equally near-universal passions I just don't get: God and baseball. I can see the appeal, maybe, sort of abstractly, but I just don't feel the pull. People who believe in either may shake their heads sadly, knowing how much I'm missing, but trust me, I'm fine. More for you. Leave me alone. So I guess I get it.

The research, such as it is, has turned up provocative findings: some 2 to 3 percent of rams studied did not sniff, care to mount, or show any interest at all in the available ewes (some 5 to 7 percent, by contrast, disdained the ewes but showed plenty of interest in other rams). There isn't much we can learn from creatures as dull-witted as sheep. But this does at least imply that there could be an asexuality that's not caused by repressive religious messages or punitive parenting but is just there, like a sexual preference or gender identity, neither of which is turning out to be anything like the social constructs so many theorists and activists wished them to be.

So, what about sexual orientation? They don't have one, right? Wrong. Most of the people profiled in the New Scientist article appear to be hetero-asexual, which certainly implies the existence of homo- and bi-asexuals. And many of the self-described asexuals responding to an online survey report wanting a relationship with someone of a particular gender, just not a sexual one. This decoupling of orientation from desire is probably the most provocative concept arising from this whole new area of study; I can't wait to see where it goes.

Once asexuality has come out of the closet, is there anyone else left in there, besides the few individuals who really do have something to be ashamed of, the rapists and pedophiles? I may not really see the asexual movement as directly analogous to the great liberation movements of the 20th century, if only because it is and will remain so tiny. But I can see one great advantage to the shedding of asexual shame: if people who don't want to have sex stopped feeling compelled to form sexual relationships because "everyone does it," the lives of those of us whose job it is to repair other people's broken sex lives would be much easier. Go, asexuals! Onto the barricades! "We're A! Stay away! Get used to it!"

Love, Andrea

E-mail Andrea Nemerson at andrea@altsexcolumn.com.

[bard of aven]

I like it! Thanks for finding and posting it.

boa

[Live R Perfect]

I swear I've read that before somewhere....

[VivreEstEsperer]

Liver, I was just thinking the exact same thing! Because I remembered the baseball metaphor from somewhere else. Hmm. I wonder where...