mis.cell.aneo.us

“Sexual attraction is treated as one of the most universal human experiences”

Because statistically it is.

“they do not feel the typical sexual desire that many people associate with finding someone attractive, although their romantic feelings... can still vary widely.”

I figure romance is a hoop through which some people jump on their way to having sex, because of cultural programming or for reasons I do not understand. I am outnumbered, but romance seems silly to me. Romance without sex would seem even more pointless than romance surrounding sex.

“Relationships are often built around the assumption that physical intimacy is necessary and universal.”

Most people understand that sex is statistically normal (asexual people may not understand that), but literally no one imagines it is necessary or universal. The asexual-movement habitually constructs straw-men boogymen to oppress asexual people, because no one real is oppressing asexual people, but the asexual movement wants victim-points.

“Some people connect emotionally without ever developing physical desire.”

Every heterosexual with same-sex friends already knows that.

“We are taught from childhood that love and intimacy must always go together.”

We are taught that love and sex statistically tend to go together, but not that sex is literally compulsory. Compelled sex exists only as an asexual rape-fantasy.

“People assume everyone secretly wants sex deep down. But some people genuinely do not. They are not ‘missing out’....”

They are missing out on something most people enjoy.

“Some asexual individuals have libido, meaning they can experience physical desire or bodily urges, but they still do not experience sexual attraction toward men or women. In other words, they are not looking at someone and thinking, ‘I want this specific person sexually.’ The attraction itself is still absent.”

attraction: something that attracts or is intended to attract people by appealing to their desires and tastes

By that definition, physical desire logically implies attraction.

“Some may choose to have sex because they enjoy the physical sensation, because they are curious, or simply because they have a libido that exists independently from attraction.”

You are stretching the meaning of “attraction” beyond all recognition to suit a conclusion you are trying to reach.

“At the end of the day, being asexual does not mean someone is broken....”

It means that they are reproductively dysfunctional. If anything ever was a dysfunction, failure to sexually reproduce would count as such. Asexuality is an evolutionary unfit trait, against which evolution selects.

“Humans are already incredibly diverse in the ways they think, feel, connect, and exist. Asexuality is simply one more variation of that diversity.”

Well, I’m going to break this down one by one (as an Aro Ace, who is not repulsed by either) because I feel like op doesn’t understand the feelings of asexuality nor do they understand the quotes themselves, and while I don’t expect to change their mind, this is a good chance to educate people who may be curious about asexuality (though keep in mind this is based off my own experiences and is in no way an all encompassing thing).

I’ll do my best to be as neutral as possible, but well, for obvious reasons I can’t be completely neutral.

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Firstly, statistics.

Yes; statistically it is, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It still shouldn’t be treated as a universal and an absolute. There is no reason for something that is statically the majority to be universal. That is like saying “oh, statistically the majority of people have brown hair (I don’t know if that is actually true, but for the sake of this example, let’s say that it is). Everyone must have brown hair, even at least at some point in their lives! They must develop the want for it, and then reach for it.” That’s simply not how it works, and asexual people are allowed to feel uncomfortable with their experiences being invalidated because of the absolutes people speak in.

Secondly, romance.

To me, op seems to think romance is unnecessary or simply doesn’t feel them and goes through the motions because society deems them as norms; well, op, congratulations, it seems to me you’re aromantic. Essentially, that experience with romantic feelings is what asexual people (or at least a lot of asexuals i know, myself included) feel with sexual attraction/sex.

Third, universality and assumptions.

many asexual people know that we are of the minority. There’s a reason why we’re part of the queer community and not simply a third thing that’s also simply allyship; and it’s because we’re a minority group who feels left out and would like to find a safe and welcoming community to feel heard and loved in.

Following that, it is clear there is a cause for asexual people to not feel seen within the larger majority. That is because sex and sexual attraction is often seen as a key part of life. There a reason abstinence is preached, it’s because people think sexual attraction and the will to engage in sex is the default. The whole message of abstinence is that sex is unnecessary, which doesn’t need to be taught, again, if people didn’t believe that wanting to have sex all the time to be the default. If people didn’t believe sex is universal, there’s little reason for the majority of media, education, and societal conversation to include sex.

And the whole victim thing; I don’t think asexuals are pointing out that asexuality exists to make ourselves seem like victims. We are victims of homophobia/acephobia but our main goal is just to be seen and heard and represented; which I think is in our right.

Fourth, emotional connection.

Per op’s point; yeah, that’s true, and that’s great, though the original post was mostly focusing on romantic relationships not needing sexual attraction. Which again, op doesn’t seem to feel romantic attraction which could be why they think of platonic friendships first in reaction to this quote.

Fifth, love and sex.

Well, not really; sure the education system (depending on where you are) teaches the separation, but media sure does not. Media and society is also a place of education, and well, other than school and church teaching abstinence and the unnecessary nature of sex, not much else is.

Honeymoons are always seen as ways for a couple to get away and have sex. Romantic movies or dramas always have a sex scene, an innuendo, or something along those lines to imply physical attraction and sexual desires. Media often portrayed having children as the result of sex, rather than surrogacy or adoption (outside of medical reasons). Reaching “third base” is seen as an accomplishment and the natural progression of a relationship. If you haven’t, your partner and you aren’t an official relationship yet. Sex is often also portrayed as the only way to “truly” know your partner intimately, which from a physical sense… maybe? But again, not from a romantic sense; but media still intrinsically connects the two together.

Also, saying that compelled sex is simply a “rape-fantasy” is negating the fact that because people see sex as an essential nature of a relationship, many people (even non-asexual people) are pushed into sex they don’t want or consent to, which is rape.

Side note; op is unclear with their language here: compelled sex is rape? Compel means forcing or obliging someone to do something? (Merriam Webster cuz that’s the dictionary op used) Which in the case of sex, makes it rape? Compel is not the verb of compulsory I fear.

Sixth, “missing out”

But it’s not missing out if I don’t even want it is it? I can only miss something if I feel attached to it? Like if everyone was getting burned alive, I’m not missing out of that by not getting burned. I’m just enjoying not being in agony and tortured? I only feel like I’m missing out of that if I have massive fomo and must feel like I’m exactly like everyone else, which is another thing and an issue in my books. Everyone’s unique and have unique experiences (for the most part at least). By saying “missing out,” that’s already assuming having sex is better than no sex and that asexuals are losing something by not wanting sex or feeling sexual attraction. Which goes back to the whole invalidation and erasure thing that op says is also not happening.

Seventh and eighth, libido and attraction.

Op is good on using actual definitions here, but they’re fundamentally misunderstanding the quote. I personally still have libido in the sense that I can get “horny(?)” and have a physical desire to feel good through masturbation. I can still feel the physical response to sexual acts (which on a difficult note, is the same concept as to how rape victims can still feel physically aroused by rape despite not wanting it at all, in any capacity; physical reactions don’t mean much in terms of want or desire). I desire to have sex in terms of the act and its sensations; not the part where it involves another person. That’s my libido.

Now attraction is hard to explain because again, a lack of attraction means I don’t know what it feels like, which means I have no way to explain what a lack of it feels like in comparison; but for me personally, I don’t find people “hot” or like I want to have sex with a specific type of person (?). Everyone incites the same physical reaction basically; like I can still find people good looking without feeling attracted (?). I have no desire for another person and no tastes for a specific type of person; so how can anything appeal to my desires and tastes to become attractive? Thus I have no attraction. I simply desire for pleasure, which is the act of sex (or in many cases masturbation) rather than sexual attraction to another person.

Ninth, “broken”

Ok wow, many things to break down here… I’ll start easy, with scientific fact (or what I remember of scientific fact at least), op is using evolution wrong (thanks AP bio). Evolution doesn’t select anything; death does. Individuals with “unfit” traits simply die off before “fit” ones do, which is why “fit” genes live on to see another generation, causing evolution (or in other words changes in the genes of a species). So asexuality isn’t “unfit” and “selected against.” Even with op’s use of logic, asexuality doesn’t seem to be selected against since our continued asexual existence is right there? Asexuals definitely still exist within the human species? Unless there’s reliable, objective trends of asexuals decreasing across generations throughout the overall human species, the data of which would take decades, if not centuries to collect properly.

Also, many asexuals aren’t unable to reproduce, they choose not to. It’s only a medical dysfunction of the reproductive tract that makes people reproductively dysfunctional. And I personally would say many other dysfunctions exist that rank above sexual dysfunction as THE dysfunction (such as respiratory or cardiovascular dysfunction but yk).

And I don’t know op’s stance on gay people, but gay people also can’t reproduce? And many gay animals of a variety of species exist so reproduction is clearly not an evolutionarily dysfunctional trait? It’s quite wide spread within the general natural world. Also, there ways to reproduce asexually (shout out to that species of lesbian cloning lizards and worker bees (?; from what I understand) for being produced asexually).

Last note on this point; there’s honestly enough humans on this earth. We don’t need more reproducers. (If people want a whole essay on this, Idk maybe I’ll write about population density and environmental caps and the human population). Instead of making a child, consider adopting an existing one.

Tenth, diversity and pathology

Again, i don’t know op’s stance on literally anything else but asexuality/their post, but the human race is incredibly diverse in terms of identity and how people present themselves, even amongst straight people. Illnesses and disorders are not the same thing as identities (though they can overlap, depending on how a person chooses to identify themselves).

Sexuality is more comparable to personalities rather than something physical like sickness or disorder. Being gay is not in any form being sick or mentally disordered. It’s simply just different. It’s something that a person has that just simply a fact of their existence, and everybody has their own unique version of it. There are tropes or concepts or groupings to fit people under, but they’re not necessarily end all be alls.

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Conclusion

If there’s anything that doesn’t make sense, I’m sorry, wrote this as ass o’clock (like 3-4 AM) and then tumblr refused to save my latest draft so I rewrote some things based on what I remembered of what I added to the last saved version. If anyone has any ideas, questions, comments, feel free to share it! Just be respectful and open to learning something new.

Happy pride everyone, and remember it’s never too late or too early to learn.

This autistic guy who has struggled his entire life to have meaningful human relationships—specifically in any romantic aspect—finding that he feels so strongly towards Simon with no idea how to handle the entire situation

So he turns to Rocky who obviously gives him a run-down of how he courted Adrian. It worked for them, why shouldn't he do the exact same? Plus, it made sense. It was logical.

Simon ends up very confused. Grace keeps doing these weird things with a nervous smile. Its almost disturbing.

Original post by @/Min_tramcam on X/Twitter