How can anyone identify as "asexual"?

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If you're confused, let me summarize:

Sexuality in the biological sense is not a choice. In the social sense, it is a choice.

Being physically or sexually attracted to someone is not a choice. If you take a look at someone and find them to be attractive, that wasn't a choice. You never made an actual decision to find them attractive. That basic, fundamental part of sexual attraction is a natural part of human nature. How many times have people been attracted to someone who wasn't equally attracted to them? Otherwise, everyone could switch their attraction to others on and off at will like a light switch.

However, whether or not someone chooses to actually act upon that, and engage in actual sexual behavior with another human being, is a choice.

One is a choice, the other isn't. I was asking why people choose to deny the social, interactive part of it- the part that obviously is a choice. I think that's where you got confused.

Clear things up some?

I have no position on the matter. Whatever sexuality anyone chooses to identify with- straight, gay, bisexual, asexual, whatever- is fine with me. I was asking people who identify as asexual to illuminate their opinions as to why they identify as such, so that I would have a clearer understanding.

Last edited by Diamond_Head on 21 Aug 2008, 11:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I thought asexual meant choosing not to have sex because for some reason the person dislikes sex or is not comfortable with it. As a permanent or long lasting choice that is asexuality.

If that's the case then it's certainly a choice.

Also a person without sexual urges would certainly be asexual would they not?

Are you trying to define the word or asking whether it is a choice or not? Seems you have to define it before deciding if it's a choice, and discussing if it's a choice is very complicated, or could become so. More a topic for a dissertation than a thread on a message board, most likely.

A bit late, but I'm back -

I think some people on the thread are confusing asexuality with antisexuality, the former being just an orientation or lack of attraction/drive towards anyone, with or without negative feelings about sex or sexual people, the latter being an ideology that sex and people who have it are bad. The latter, sometimes though not always, is more closely related to celibacy - which IS a choice, to ignore or repress existing sexual desires - than to asexuality. Though some asexuals may have bad feelings towards sex or sexual people, mostly for reasons of exclusion or misunderstanding with other people, the same reasons for which some AS people resent NTs, most do realize that it is an undeniably important part of well over 90% of people's life, and all do realize that, unless we suddenly perfect and lose our inhibitions about cloning technology, it is the way that the species continues. I can see how the jump from asexuality to antisexuality was made, but at least from what I've seen on AVEN and other communities, it's not generally the case.

People with Autism can actually lack, or not be able to define certain emotions they feel.

If lust is one of them, asexuality enters the picture. I know a man with Autism who doesn't feel "Romantic" love, I know a man with Asperger's who doesn't feel/can't define nearly all emotions.

Now, I don't see why a "normal" person can't lack "problems" with emotions, as every trait of Autism is found in the general population in ones and twos in many cases.

i understand what you are saying here, but the idea still doesn't make much sense to me.

i guess i have heard something along these lines from religious people who think homosexuality is a sin. they admit that a gay person may be attracted to the same sex, but can choose to remain abstinent, and they should to avoid that sin and be accepted by them. so, denying pleasure = social benefit.

i suppose i am thinking of it too much like an aspie. i wasn't thinking of people who just hate sex or are anti-sexual... i can't see any reason for an asexual to do something completely boring or unpleasant just because society wants them to. where is the trade-off benefit? social acceptance? why should they care about that? what good does it do them?

if my sexual orientation went again the majority, if i was supposed to want to sleep with women-- well, i don't want to. so i'm not going to. society's opinion on it isn't going to force me to. i don't care enough about society. that's my whole "problem." they don't have enough power to "reward" me.

i may be deterred from some things, like i don't actually murder people even though i might feel like it, but abstaining from certain actions is a completely different thing from ACTING without cause or desire or motivation. i might not have sex when i want to, but having sex when i don't want to? why?

Don't misunderstand me- I'm not trying to convince you of anything. Like I said, I was interested in the reasons people give for identifying as asexual.

I was saying that sexuality has always been a natural part of human existence since the dawn of time. I'm not trying to convince anyone of its benefits, detriments, accolades, or anything else. Whatever anyone wants to do is fine with me.

As far as the social part of it goes: A person who chooses to not engage in sexual activity because they personally do not find sexuality to be attractive is different from a person who chooses not to engage in sexual activity because they don't want to engage in the social part of it- going out, meeting someone, and eventually interacting with them in that way.

A person who says "I don't feel like having to go out and expend all that energy in trying to find someone" or "I'm no good in social situations with the opposite sex, I'd rather just chill out by myself" isn't really an asexual person. That specific outlook would really just be a personal social preference.

So, if like you said, you choose not to engage in sexuality because you don't feel like the social rewards or benefits are sufficient enough, that's different than someone who chooses not to engage in sexuality because they personally do not find the actual sexual act to be attractive.

Either way, like I said, whatever anyone wants to do is cool. This entire post was started because I wanted to hear the opinions of a few people who identify as a particular sexual orientation. That's all.

Last edited by Diamond_Head on 22 Aug 2008, 8:00 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Sexual orientations are not choices. Asexuality is a sexual orientation, but celibacy is not. You are born with your sexual orientation and you can't change it. People who are asexuals are born that way and cannot change.

Just to put an idea out there- What if someone actively engaged in sexual activity, decided that they were absolutely repulsed by it after they tried it, and then decided to willingly take part in medical procedures that would in effect cause them to become sterilized? Situations like that have previously happened before.

Would that then be a person who was born sexual and then changed and became asexual? Or, if a person is born with one solid sexual orientation that can never change, would that be a case of someone who was born asexual and then didn't realize it until later?

no no no no no... that is not what i was trying to say. i do not see those two categories. i see that a person with no interest/attraction to the act of sex chooses to obey how they feel. i don't see how that is much of a choice. how or why would they even consider otherwise? the only thing that might influence them to act again their nature is some kind of social pressure, social benefit, which would not be enough to make me care.

the first part, people who choose not to engage in sexuality because social rewards are not enough? well i wasn't talking about them at all. some person that has a norrmal sex drive, but that doesn't have sex because they can't navigate a social situation-- well that is something entirely different. not asexuality at all. that's just isolation. being a virgin doesn't make you asexual.

...no

I identify as asexual because I don't even like the thought of any form of sexual intercourse, and see it more as a chore that I don't like.

Troll alert!

Asexuals and virgins are not synonymous either. Many asexuals have married and even had kids. Many asexuals regularly have sex for the sake of their partners, but like was said above, its a chore, just like mowing the yard or taking out the trash. Some asexuals refuse to have sex at all regardless of the consequences. To them, its just as repulsive as a straight guy having sex with another straight guy. You don't have to do it in order to be turned off by it.

As far as creating an asexual by surgically altering him - you can't. What you get is a eunuch. If you gave him some testosterone shots, he'd be right back their trying to get laid.

I'm asexual and my testosterone checked out to be within normal limits. Its just the way I was born. I work in an environment with lots of beautiful women all around me, but I'm not sexually attracted to them.

I've thought of myself as asexual because I do not experience love or lust and do not have a need for either. If others have a desire to reproduce, it doesn't bother me. I do have some genes that probably shouldn't be passed on and it's one less thing to worry about.

I've been told that I just "haven't found the right person", but I have my doubts

I'm asexual because I'm not sexually attracted to other people.

Asking how someone can be asexual is like asking how someone can be homosexual or heterosexual or bisexual, and so on. Being asexual is just about who you are sexually attracted to - in the case of asexual people, nobody.

Asexuality isn't about denying one's sexuality, or being celibate or a virgin, or not having romantic relationships, or disliking or being repulsed by sex, or being physically unable to have sex, or anything other than not being sexually attracted to other people.

Actually, a sexual orientation is about who you want sex with and not who you are attracted to. Asexuals are attracted to attractive people, but not in a sexual way. Its more like envy than lust. In other words, as an asexual male, I'm constantly looking at other guys and thinking "Wow, I wished I looked like that!" But the thought of sex with them would be really repulsive.

In a really bad way, I am also attracted to beautiful females. But in that case, its not envy or lust, its just that they are simply easier to look at. I know that's wrong, but its the way it works. I do try to be friendly to all of them, but I just don't go out of my way to make friends with the ugly ones.

I think it is pretty safe to say that when you want to have sex with someone this also comes with some sort of attraction. Wanting to have sex w/ an individual means sexual attraction towards this individual, so sexual orientation and sexual attraction are linked.

It is true that asexuals are attracted to attractive people, without the sexual component. But this counts for everyone: all people of all sexual orientations (generaly) like to be around beautiful people more than they like to be around ugly/misformed people (all other things the same). People tend to be very superficial.