Does "asexual" mean "not desiring either men or women" or "not experiencing erotic arousal?"

[AlinaX]

We make choices every day. We take things on faith, because it's impossible for us to know and understand everything. We accept, for example, that love is real, although I don't know that science has ever proved it so.

Human interaction, our very ability to connect in a meaningful way with other people, depends fundamentally on what we choose to believe about ourselves and others and the world we live in.

You can choose to believe that asexuality is a delusion, but that doesn't help you connect meaningfully with anyone other than fellow sceptics.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

If that's not the case, it still sounds like you're making it your business to say you're skeptical of their lived experience. What good does that do anyone? And by "anyone" I really do mean "anyone" - asexual people aren't served by it, non-asexual people aren't served by it, and I don't even know how it serves you, yourself, to say it.

You are making an argument from pragmatism. What I actually want is to stay skeptical until proven otherwise without being called out as a chauvinist. I don't mean you specifically here, but that is how it often goes about these things.

EDIT nevermind, I see above where you do say you think they're not being honest. So answer the question: Why would they lie?

That's not what I said. But a person not saying the truth intentionally or for whatever other reason is a possibility as well that should be put to scrutiny, but it isn't, because any such attempt is automatically called out as chauvinism or such.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I find it kind of strange that people are doubting the existence of this.

To me Demi-sexual kind of seems like the old Victorian ideals of women - utterly chaste but willing to finally let a loving husband ravish them. And then asexuality being the 'lay back and think of England' level. For certain long centuries, this was considered to be the norm for women. And women who experienced (or worse displayed) actual interest in sex were considered beyond the pale.

At worst, these new-fangled words are saying that men can be like that too sometimes and that's okay.

 

[AlinaX]

You are, of course, entitled to be sceptical. It's a healthy attitude. However, when you make a point - unnecessarily - of insisting on your right to be sceptical, it reads like an argument that you have no real foundation for.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You can choose to believe that asexuality is a delusion, but that doesn't help you connect meaningfully with anyone other than fellow sceptics.

You are reversing things here. I do not believe asexuality is a delusion. I am just skeptical about it being the way it is explained in this thread. I am not the one claiming something here, you are. The burden of proof is on you if you actually care about proving it. If you don't, then that's all fine, but then don't go berserk on me if I express my skepticism.

 

[AlinaX]

You are reversing things here. I do not believe asexuality is a delusion. I am just skeptical about it being the way it is explained in this thread. I am not the one claiming something here, you are. The burden of proof is on you if you actually care about proving it. If you don't, then that's all fine, but then don't go berserk on me if I express my skepticism.

Why should I have to prove anything? You are the one who cares enough about proof to argue with an increasingly accepted definition.

 

[AlinaX]

Meh. People.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Also, for the record, I openly questioned just one aspect of this thing. I don't have a hard time believing that there are people who don't feel sexual attraction at all. What I questioned, specifically, is that they can feel arousal without that arousal being about any specific person, animal, fetish, sexual act and so on. (assuming it's not chemically induced in some way beyond the usual function of our body)

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Some special snowflakes really can't handle a world where people label themselves...

and here we went almost 2 pages without dishing out insults.

 

[AlinaX]

We went almost 2 pages with you voicing scepticism, and now you make a clarification that you meant some very specific point?

 

[AwkwardlySet]

We went almost 2 pages with you voicing scepticism, and now you make a clarification that you meant some very specific point?

It was that from my very first post? Go back and read it and see what I claimed to be ridiculous, specifically.

By the way, it wouldn't justify the insults, even if I were skeptical about some more basic principles of asexuality.

 

[AlinaX]

You could have answered your own question with half a second's thought.
People, regardless of orientation, get aroused by all sorts of things.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You are reversing things here. I do not believe asexuality is a delusion. I am just skeptical about it being the way it is explained in this thread. I am not the one claiming something here, you are. The burden of proof is on you if you actually care about proving it. If you don't, then that's all fine, but then don't go berserk on me if I express my skepticism.

I don't believe AwkwardlySet actually believes this. I think he's just saying it for some reason of his own. Just being skeptical. The burden of proof is on him to show that he really believes it.

 

[Britva415]

I don't believe AwkwardlySet actually believes this. I think he's just saying it for some reason of his own. Just being skeptical. The burden of proof is on him to show that he really believes it.

"Just being skeptical?" Nah, I don't believe he really has a lived sense of skepticism even though he says he is and even though he may truly think he is.

It's "just ridiculous" to me that someone would disbelieve when other people talk about how their own experience of attraction and arousal is.

Sound familiar, @AwkwardlySet? It's exactly what @AlinaX meant, way back here:

A thing doesn't become a thing just because someone says so. You can't know if they are actually experiencing what they say they are experiencing, nor can we know if there is some specific reason for that, other than that being an actual thing. We could go on like this forever.

True, but you've just undermined the totality of human interaction.

Shoe's on the other foot, isn't it.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

There are those who simply don't enjoy being around other people and who feel the deed is mechanical and just another task.

But they enjoy the idea of it and visualize fantasy people and relationships that could not possibly exist and live it all out in their head.

...

 

[Comshaw]

Also, for the record, I openly questioned just one aspect of this thing. I don't have a hard time believing that there are people who don't feel sexual attraction at all. What I questioned, specifically, is that they can feel arousal without that arousal being about any specific person, animal, fetish, sexual act and so on. (assuming it's not chemically induced in some way beyond the usual function of our body)

There is a thing called "Persistent genital arousal disorder" where a person can be sexually aroused without any outside stimulus. The video I saw about it was a girl who had orgasms continuously throughout the day. There seems to be no sexual attraction to anything. Those who suffer from this get aroused spontaneously. And in extreme cases like the one in the video I saw, suffer from continuous orgasms. It boggles my mind to think a person can "suffer" from having orgasms, but it appears to be so in these cases. Just a thought on the matter.

Comshaw

​

 

[AwkwardlySet]

There is a thing called "Persistent genital arousal disorder" where a person can be sexually aroused without any outside stimulus. The video I saw about it was a girl who had orgasms continuously throughout the day. There seems to be no sexual attraction to anything. Those who suffer from this get aroused spontaneously. And in extreme cases like the one in the video I saw, suffer from continuous orgasms. It boggles my mind to think a person can "suffer" from having orgasms, but it appears to be so in these cases. Just a thought on the matter.

Comshaw

​

Interesting, I didn't know such a condition existed. I had to google that one for specifics. It is not tied in any way to asexuality though.
Still, it was interesting to read about it. Human bodies are so freaking complex and even today's medicine can't always tell the cause, let alone treat such disorders.

 

[Comshaw]

Interesting, I didn't know such a condition existed. I had to google that one for specifics. It is not tied in any way to asexuality though.
Still, it was interesting to read about it. Human bodies are so freaking complex and even today's medicine can't always tell the cause, let alone treat such disorders.

No, it isn't tied to asexuality, but there isn't anything that says the two conditions can't co-exist in one person at the same time. My opinion is that asexuality is an abnormal condition. It could be any number of things, hormone imbalance or the absence of one or more of those. If it's an imbalance you could have two conditions (asexuality and PGAD) at the same time, so you have spontaneous arousal without being attracted or aroused by any particular thing or being.
Comshaw

 

[Britva415]

My opinion is that asexuality is an abnormal condition. It could be any number of things, hormone imbalance or the absence of one or more of those.

They used to say the same thing about gays, but nobody thinks of that as abnormal today.

Asexuality is as valid a sexual orientation as anything else in the alphabet soup.

 

[AlinaX]

Ah, the letter A. A for aro, ace & agender, and arguments about allies...

 

[XerXesXu]

There is a thing called "Persistent genital arousal disorder" where a person can be sexually aroused without any outside stimulus. The video I saw about it was a girl who had orgasms continuously throughout the day. There seems to be no sexual attraction to anything. Those who suffer from this get aroused spontaneously. And in extreme cases like the one in the video I saw, suffer from continuous orgasms. It boggles my mind to think a person can "suffer" from having orgasms, but it appears to be so in these cases. Just a thought on the matter.

Comshaw

​

That's what being a teenage boy is like. If it's a defined syndrome, maybe boys should be given 25% more time to complete exams than girls - in the name of equality.

An interesting fact about the female orgasm: The defining feature of Homo Sapiens is the chin. No one can explain why we've evolved chins. A second defining feature of a female homo sapiens is that they orgasm. The females of no other species do. Again, no explanation.

 

[TheRedChamber]

A second defining feature of a female homo sapiens is that they orgasm.

When you put it like that, it all seems to simple, and yet...

 

[TheLobster]

They used to say the same thing about gays, but nobody thinks of that as abnormal today.

This is a Fully-General Counterargument that could used to support anything, including things that I won’t mention that everyone finds repulsive and evil. It has no discursive value.

 

[AlinaX]

Don't be daft. It was a precise parallel on the subject of sexual orientation.

 

[u1u1u1]

There are multiple aspects to the thing we call “sexual attraction”.

There’s physiological arousal.
There’s the emotional response to arousal that feels like you need to get your rocks off.
There’s the motivation to act upon that emotional response.
There’s the knowledge that it is (or isn’t) appropriate to act upon that response.
There is “sex favourability”, the willingness to actually participate in sex acts as opposed to being repulsed by the idea.
There’s possession of a sexual target, the desire to have sex with (or thinking about) a certain person.

Sexuality, including all of these aspects, is a spectrum, and it isn’t possible to draw a neat line around all the asexual people. Some people are clearly asexual, and some are clearly not, but a lot exist in a grey area.