If sex without love exists, why can’t love without sex exist? It does, and it can, asserts one man who identifies as asexual.
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Recently I came out as asexual via a public social media post. If you never have heard of asexuality in reference to sexual orientation, the simplest definition is when a person does not experience sexual attraction toward others. The distinction of sexual attraction rather than any other type of attraction is an important one. It can be difficult for many allosexuals to understand (people who regularly experience sexual attraction) in part because sex often is closely tied to intimacy.
A logical statement that might help is this: If sex without love exists, why can’t love without sex exist? People often distinguish familial or other types of love from romantic love. The problem is that very often people confuse sex and romantic love even though many people can and do have sex without any sort of romantic or emotionally intimate ties to their sex partners. This only illustrates the fact that asexuals might have sex despite a lack of sexual attraction (no “chemistry” is felt with the partner—the sex is about experiencing physical pleasure). Furthermore, because love and sex are different, asexuals can feel and express love or experience non-sexual forms of attraction absent of sex or sexual attraction.
Some people still might think that asexuals do not exist—like unicorns.
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Some people still might think that asexuals do not exist—like unicorns. Asexuals exist but are quite rare, and might be more similar to ligers (a cross between a lion and a tiger). Still not a great metaphor because asexuals are not a cross or a hybrid, nor do we necessarily have anything biologically or genetically different about us than anyone else. It is conceivable, however, that somebody might be both intersexed, transgender, agender, or genderfluid and asexual. When I started learning about asexuality I thought a transgender asexual person was akin to a unicorn, but then a few people came forward who were both transgender and asexual! Sex and gender, while related, are altogether different.
Today, it is likely that you are familiar with the term “transgender.” Transgender means a person’s gender identity—the gender they feel they are—does not match the gender they were assigned at birth. People generally are identified as the gender that matches the genitalia they are born with. If a baby is born with female genitalia then they identify as “female”, or they are said to be “male” if they have male genitalia. But transgender people often realize early in life that they do not feel like the gender their body supposedly makes them. A female would feel they are a male trapped in a female body or vice versa. Intersexed people are born with ambiguous genitalia and/or a genetic or biological anomaly that distinguishes them from typical males and females. Agender people do not identify as either male or female and gender fluid people vary in how they feel about their gender. Gender fluid people may sometimes feel more male or female depending on particular circumstances. Genderfluid or agender people may or may not be considered androgynous, crossdressers, transvestites, or whatever descriptive category one might consider.
Beyond sexual attraction lie the concepts of romantic attraction and aesthetic attraction.
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Apologies if all of this is a bit confusing and overwhelming. It can be especially perplexing for people who have grown up knowing only about cisgender (a person whose biological sex and gender match) and heterosexual people—who arguably account for the majority of people on earth. As if the above was not already enough, it gets even more complicated. Beyond sexual attraction lie the concepts of romantic attraction and aesthetic attraction. Asexuals may still find people pretty, handsome, beautiful, or otherwise aesthetically appealing. If we are not aromantic (lacking romantic attraction toward others), we might also form or desire to form intimate, yet non-sexual romantic bonds with others. These attractions apply to the opposite gender, the same gender, or any possible combination of genders. You might be familiar with some or all of the terms heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and pansexual. The “hetero”, “homo”, and “bi” prefixes ought to be obvious. The “pan” prefix basically means “any” or no preference in regard to sexual attraction. So, too are there similar words distinguishing different types of romantic attraction: heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic and panromantic. A few other terms include gray-asexual (or graysexual), gray-romantic, demisexual, and demiromantic. In these terms “gray” means attraction is possible, but very rare and “demi” refers to attraction existing only after an emotional bond has been formed.
Sexuality, gender and attraction are much more complicated than many believe. Much of modern civilization recognizes only the “black and white” cisgender and heterosexual (“cishet” for short) categories of gender and sexual orientation, which is a major factor into why the “LGBT” pride flag is rainbow colored. The asexual community has their own flag (several, actually) and symbols, as well. The (main) asexual flag is striped top to bottom black, gray, white and purple. We jokingly prefer cake to sex (not everyone likes cake). We often use the word “ace” and the “ace” playing card (ace of hearts, spades, etc.) as shorthand and as symbols for our asexualness, respectively.
People think we all are shy, geeky introverts that are afraid of sex or intimacy, but some or all of that is true in only some cases.
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Asexual may be the rarest sexual orientation among humans. The Internet age has enabled us to come together and form our own support communities and share our stories and experiences with one another. Because we are difficult to understand, we ourselves, as well as others, might consider us “broken” due to a history of sexual trauma, some kind of hormonal imbalance, or other environmental, physiological, or psychological condition. Those are blanket generalizations. They are not impossible, but likely they are not true of most aces. People think we all are shy, geeky introverts that are afraid of sex or intimacy, but some or all of that is true in only some cases. Some aces might be very social, extroverted, or even like to pleasure themselves, but do not desire intercourse.
Asexuals are a diverse group. If somebody comes out as asexual, questions or comments may not be welcome or could be downright disrespectful. Some of the following questions are exactly, or are similar to the following.
Are you a virgin?
Do you masturbate?
Do you reproduce like an amoeba? (That’s absurd!)
So you don’t have/want any children?
If you never had sex, how do you know you don’t like it?
Maybe you were just traumatized.
Maybe you have a hormonal imbalance.
Maybe you are just afraid of, or repulsed by sex.
Maybe you just have not met the right person yet.
You’re too pretty/handsome/(choose your adjective) to not want sex.
This piece was published after asexual awareness week, which took place October 19-25, 2015. It would have been out sooner, and I considered not writing it at all. Then I realized that many asexuals suffer needlessly…
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This piece was published after asexual awareness week, which took place October 19-25, 2015. It would have been out sooner, and I considered not writing it at all. Then I realized that many asexuals suffer needlessly because we are perceived to be physically, mentally, or psychologically ill or unnatural. It can feel similar to how homosexuals and other gender and sexual orientation (GSD) diverse people can endure demonizing for who they are as they’re encouraged to be something they are not. Even if the worst slam asexuals can be called is “boring” for not having sex (even though many aces actually do), we need to know that it is okay to be who we are. Whatever our gender identities, or sexual preferences, or lack of them, all GSD people are still people.
If you would like to learn more, please check out http://asexualawarenessweek.com or http://www.asexuality.org.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
Yes, thanks. All helpful in understanding the vast spectrum of human sexuality. The problems start with mis-match. My wife now defines herself as an asexual lesbian, which is fine for her. But how does a heterosexual man decide to become asexual? What can he do to express his sexuality, or rid himself of it?… What I think I miss most is not the sex, it is not being desired.