What is it like to be asexual?
By Lucy WallisBBC News
Twenty-one-year-old Jenni Goodchild does not experience sexual attraction, but in an increasingly sexualised society what is it like to be asexual?
If I were a stand up comedian, I would have a field day with this. This is group of self-identified people who define not having sex as something other than celibacy, chastity, whatever. They have a sub-categories, romantic and aromantic which means exactly what you think it does. They also have gay and lesbian asexuals. I can barely type for the number of times my eyes are rolling back up in my head with bemused annoyance. The young lady featured above is 21, barely old enough to pick a career and clearly not yet committed to a hair color but she's going on the record as asexual. I think she could safely describe herself as a virgin or celibate since "It is not known whether asexuality is something a person experiences for their entire life or for a period of time." I don't know, I'm guessing we don't know because being asexual is not a real thing. It's just called not having sex. But maybe I'm wrong. I just thought I just wasn't having sex but maybe I'm asexual. If there is some kind of additional sub-category of minority I can fit in by claiming that label, I'm in, at least long enough to get some scholarships or something.
Just to be clear, I don't have anything against people not having sex for whatever reason; faith, lack of interest, discipline, safety. But to make not having sex into a group of people akin to hetero and homosexuals, that's just horse squeeze to me. Rainbow Bright had this to say regarding how she could know she was asexual when she had never had sex: "Well if you're straight have you tried having sex with somebody you know of the same sex as you? How do you know you wouldn't enjoy that? You just know that if you're not interested in it, you're not interested in it, regardless of having tried it or not."
Fair enough, I feel the same way about brussel sprouts. But I wouldn't start or join a group of people who don't like brussel sprouts and create awareness of our community of people who are doing nothing but not eating brussel sprouts, being in relationships with people who do. This is a group of people NOT doing something. What. the. fuck.
But I'm all for the bandwagon. Let's catalog the human condition until everyone has a group, especially if you are a group of people who are *not* doing something. I think the following things should become defined groups with forums, lawyers on retainer to file discrimination suits, and advocacy/awareness activities.
*Kids and adults who don't do their homework (I suggest ADHD and non-ADHD chapters)
*People who insist on driving in the left lane with cruise control no more than 3 miles above the posted speed limit and very often at least five miles *under* the speed limit. Their voices must be heard and the discrimination, middle fingers, curses on their family, and abrupt cutting off to make them have to tap their breaks and reset their cruise control just has to stop.
*People who don't pick up after their dogs
*People who don't watch popular movies until at least a year after everyone stops talking about them and often not at all
*People who have never seen Casablanca and have no interest in doing so
*People who don't wear makeup
*People who don't like socializing but don't consider it a disorder and are perfectly ok with it
*People who don't collect stamps/beanie babies/antiques
*People who don't bathe (this is a group with possibilities, I've smelled them everywhere)
*People who don't kill other people (a silent majority whose time has come to have a voice)
A federal holiday wouldn't hurt either. We've got some room between March and May that could use some paid breaks. Also, here is my new dating profile:
I'm asexual because that is a thing you can be now. I want to get to know you and spend time cuddling and kissing you if the asexual chemistry is there. I think you people call it dating but look it up, it's a thing now.
1 comment:
I also find this phenom interesting; yet despite my highly sexualized nature and existence, I don't think its so outrageous. Its a fact that when population levels/density of many animals hit a certain point, the sperm counts of the males will decline and the length of fertility for females will become shorter (they're just less interested in sex and breeding). Perhaps what these people think is a conscious decision is really a manifestation of unconscious factors at work. Or underlying physical/chemical cues that are informing their mindset.
But more likely, its probably just a lack of psychological development; or a response to the economics of modern life. Being asexual allows you to put off relationship issues and allows a person to avoid possible sexual identity confusion without dealing with it head-on.
But again, in defense of the asexual lifestyle; w/ 7 billion people on this planet (and that number's growing by the hundreds of thousands everyday) we as a species might want to learn how to couple and support each other w/out bringing more pressure on our natural resources or the labor pool. Most of us aren't farmers. The need for human labor has never been more diminished; and technological advances further cheapens the value of human labor (and life). To somehow learn to love and live together while rising above the most primitive driver of our behavior would be an evolutionary advancement. Course we wont be humans once we master it. We'll have moved to the next level of species development.
Post a Comment