Just one question, Argent. How is it that they know about this "none of your business" fact of your life? Personally, I never discuss my sex life with anyone because it doesn't concern them, not even if the whole circle of friends is talking about it. It has nothing to do with my pride or lack thereof, just a privacy issue. Maybe stony silence would shut them up. It works on trolls on the Internet.

Interesting post. I read an article a few years ago about asexuality and how it is a legitimate sexual orientation/identity that's not necessarily associated with any pathology. The article quoted a percentage, I think 1-3%, of adults who are asexual in the population.
I wonder if the percentage would be higher if our society put less pressure on people to have sex.

Amazing how people can turn a non-problem into a problem. I empathize 100 per cent. It's the same for women who prefer to be single: we get told "we haven't found the right guy", etc., when in fact we don't give a flying rat's ass.

Thanks for putting this up here. One of my sister's friends recently said she was asexual and I guess I reacted in the same way most people would..."maybe you just aren't sure what you want" and so forth. That was pretty inconsiderate of me. I can try to empathize but I'll never really understand. I wish there was more information about this orientation/identity available.

Beautiful Post. I especially liked your last line. Just yesterday I was telling someone how happy I was to be single. She told me that hormones exist for a reason - meaning, I guess, that I would soon seek out a partner for sex. And what if I don't want to? What if I don't even think about sex, unless someone tells me that I should be having it?

Sometimes it doesn't occur to me that something is 'wrong' with me, until someone feels compelled to point out my nonconformity. I also feel alienated living in our society. It can be painful at times. And people wonder why I flee to the mountains.

There is plenty of information about asexuality. http://www.asexuality.org/home/ has been helpful to me in the past.

This really spoke to me:

The world, my workplace, and my frienships are full of jokes about sex that assume I want to have it. Billboards, movies, more. People grin and raise eyebrows. It is boring. It is tiresome. And incrediably alienating.Except that's not how I feel about sex, it's how I feel about alcohol. I have high risk factors for addiction and as I've seen addiction ruin the lives of my family members. I can definitely relate, even if our situations are slightly different.

My mother pretty much identifies as asexual. Of course it is a legitimate orientation. She doesn't 'need help' and nor do you.

FGJ, that's how I feel about alcohol, too. I'm just not interested. But nobody seems to understand that.

Great post, Argent.

Marilyn, it's pretty easy for people who are het not to notice how heteronormative the world around them is; that includes the norms that one wants and will have partnered sex.

Depending on one's job and work environment, it can actually be pretty hard to steadfastly refuse to talk about one's personal life. That is, for women especially, a really fast route to being generally deemed cold, distant, impersonal, difficult, and a "bad fit" in many workplaces.

Queer folks figure this out pretty quick. One can be stubbornly closeted, but that's constant effort. Less obvious, but just as real, is that everyone works within the assumptions that everyone around them is sexual. It is just as real as the assumptions that everyone is het unless otherwise specified, and cisgendered. I notice, for example, that because folks I work with know I'm married to a woman, that they say things that assume I'm only attracted to and have only ever been with women. Those are close to true; but how do they know? If I were bi, would I out myself and tell them not to assume I'm het because I'm partnered with a MOTOS? Would I put myself out there to challenge their narrow assumptions? (In my life, in my workplace, I could do that. That's because I'm very privileged.)

Some folks work in environments where there is little interaction, or where people don't talk about anything personal. Many of us do bring some of our personal lives into the workplace, though. Some folks are shabbas observers and need to bounce on a Friday night; some have to skip a morning for a parent-teacher conference or to take care of a sick child, some don't want to stay some night unless it's really important because they have a date; and most folks have some contact with popular culture, from the red carpets at award shows to American Idol. Not expressing any opinion, ever, on family, life partners, attraction or sexuality can be really almost impossible. And when we talk about these things, they get laid out across a framework of assumptions about who people are. Those assumptions exclude a lot of people. If folks who are not cis-het-monogamous 2.4kid types, they can avoid tipping anyone off: basically, they can stay closeted. But if they stay closeted, the assumptions remain unchallenged and the prejudices that go with those assumptions remain unchecked. And it destroys those people.

Portly Dyke, at Shakesville, has expressed this with incendiary brilliance that I marvel at.

Now, one may say, "asexuality is different. GLB folks have to hide a partner and a whole relationship, while transfolks have to hide a whole history, if they are in the closet, while asexuals have only to hide an absence of things other people take for granted." Maybe it's a different experience, and not one I've had so I don't know, but I expect it's still pretty draining.

This is an interesting topic, and I'm glad you brought it up. I think a lot of us react this way because we do experience it so differently that it's like trying to imagine somebody announcing that they don't want to eat. It's hard to conceptualize. I remember giggling uncontrollably as a young college student reading Victorian era physicians' characterizations of the female sex drive (or complete lack thereof). It seemed so alien to me. But this is no excuse for assuming that your condition is the norm, or that it should be the norm. This kind of comes back to the topic of listening, really listening, as the starting point for appreciating and understanding diverse experiences.

This is interesting. I am not asexual but sometimes I think I could be perfectly fine having piv sex only for reproduction or just very rarely. There is lots of pressure on both women and men to enjoy piv sex and not that women can't but probably on average women enjoy it less (or in a different way) but that isn't acknowledged so often.

Lyndorr, your're not alone. I would say piv is way down in the middle of the pack of sexual activities that are important to me. I was in a five-year, very sexual relationship and never once had piv. (I am, however, a pretty serious sadomasochist. YMMV, and my level of "meh" about piv may be rare among nonkinky het folks.)

I don't think there is anything particularly nefarious about an assumption such as this. At its root, an assumption is simply a weighing of the odds. The vast majority of the world's adult population enjoys sexual contact. So, in any random encounter with an individual, the odds are that the other person enjoys sexual contact of some sort. This is certainly not a cause for condemnation of those who do not particularly like sexual contact ... but I also cannot condemn someone for the assumption that sex is enjoyable to almost all of the population.

I see this as no different from assuming someone likes chocolate. Most people do like chocolate, so, unless there is some explicit indication otherwise, it is a reasonable and understandable assumption. Likewise, most people are sexual ... so unless there is some indication otherwise, it is understandable to assume that people are sexual.

I also see no problem with the assumption that heterosexual men and women enjoy piv intercourse, or that someone is cisgendered. The vast majority of heterosexual men and women do enjoy piv intercourse, even if most women cannot come from piv alone (I suppose I am an anomaly in this regard, because I am able to orgasm from piv alone). And, the vast majority of people are cisgendered. Thus, given no indication to the contrary, it seems a reasonable assumption that a heterosexual person enjoys piv, and that an individual is cisgendered.

I don't know. In some respects, I fully understand that people feel excluded by some assumptions. All of us are excluded in one way or another, because few people exist right along with the odds. It is deviations from the "norm" that make people unique.

On the other hand, I don't see anything particularly nefarious about making assumptions that will prove accurate the vast majority of the time.

kbz

I think the reason that asexuality concerns people so much is that often an expressed lack of interest in sex is a cover for fear of sex symptomatic of trauma (at least in media). Yeah it's nobody's business but yours and yeah, it isn't a problem for you, but at least your near and dear care. My personal advice not that you asked, is to be patient with people, hear them out (once) and then tell them to go jump in a lake.

Hello Marilyn :)

The social group I am a part of is extremely open about queer ideals, sexual behaviour, and constantly analyzes and examines social context. Often badly, myself included - none of us are sociologists! I myself don't have the desire to hide what I am, especially when we're discussing issues of visibility. I used to do so, but in an environment which is structured so as to try to make it safe for one to be out of the closet, it was much more painful to remain silent under other assumptions. I'm not certain if that explanation helps, but I'm lucky to be part of a group that is active and open about these issues. They just need a little more work on acceptance, really.

Thankyou to everyone who's responded! I don't really mind that people assume I'm like everyone else - though it can be irritating. The level of annoyed goes up when I get told I should be, or must be but can't make up my mind, or aren't doing things right, or so on. However, it's a very low visibility issue, and one that's mostly seen as a negative, so it's understandable. Just sometimes requires venting.

Thanks for posting this! I'm asexual; it's my orientation and I've been this way my whole life. I'm glad to see so many understanding comments; feminists must be an open-minded group! :-)

(I have a blog about asexuality: http://theonepercentclub.blogspot.com)

Hi, Argent. Thanks for explaining the context. Your problem makes more sense now, and you seem content to be a part of this type of discussion, just trying to get others to accept your sexual orientation.

Maybe "don't try to fix me, I'm not broken" or "I won't try to fix you if you won't try to fix me." Let them know that they could seem just as weird in an asexual society.

I'm definitely not interested in the whole relationship thing. Never had a boyfriend, never wanted one. Obviously, my family knows this (at least the first part of that statement), and they just don't get that I'm not freakin' interested. They're like telemarketers, except I can't hang up on them when I tell them I'm not interested. So I just keep that private to everyone else. People like friends and coworkers don't normally ask, so it's easy for me to keep it private. And I don't think I'd even talk about my relationship even if I were in one, because it's really nobody's business.

I'm not really on board with the idea of any sexuality - be it asexuality, hetero or homosexuality, or anything in between - being a set-in-stone, this is how one was born thing. I identify as asexual for the moment, but am not comfortable saying, for certain, that I'll identify the same way twenty years from now. Sex doesn't disgust me, it's just something I have no interest in whatsoever; not just partnered sex, but masturbation as well. I don't think it's impossible for sexuality to genuinely be one way at a certain period in someone's life and change at another.

That said, I think dismissing a sexuality that could change as a "phase" is absolutely ridiculous. Saying something is "a phase" is pretty much saying, "Oh, there's no legitimate reason for you to be this way, it's just that time of your life, so you should give it up now and just go ahead and screw. You'll want to once you get to it!" Just because I acknowledge that I might want to have sex with someone sometime doesn't mean I'm not certain I have no interest in sex now. People should respect that. No outside force should be pressuring anyone into changing their sexuality.