Understanding Asexuality

founding member of the most popular asexuality website, AVEN, has explained at various times why he began the site. His reasons seem to reflect a number of the identity issues mentioned above. For example, one reason was personal: “He was driven by memories of feeling alone. As a teenager in St. Louis, he searched the Web for asexual and found only research on amoebas” (Bulwa, 2009, August 24). Another reason was educational—to help other asexual people understand more about themselves (Bulwa, 2009, August 24). Indeed, there are various stories of asexual people “discovering themselves” through AVEN. For example, one young woman recalls that AVEN “described her so accurately… that she cried over her keyboard” (Bulwa, 2009, August 24).

It is also clear that, over time, Jay wanted to build a community that would enable asexual people to change the way the world (especially the medical world) views them. Thus, this last reason for developing AVEN is in line with (public) identities being a means of social and political change. He has said, “When I was younger, the message I would always hear is that you need sex to be happy” (Childs, 2009, January 16). He has also said, “We need to know we’re not broken” (Bulwa, 2009, August 24), and “We need to have more discussion about how people can not have sex and still be happy” (Childs, 2009, January 16). This last reason for founding and expanding AVEN has led to an active movement to do just that: Some AVEN members have become a vocal group lobbying to change the way the latest DSM edition labels asexual people, particularly if they are not distressed about their lack of sexual interest/attraction. One media report stated this directly: “AVEN members have one concrete goal: changing the authoritative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to make explicit that asexuality is not a hypoactive sexual desire disorder” (Bulwa, 2009, August 24). However, such change begins with, or at least is facilitated by, a cohesive group rallying around a relevant identity or common label. After all, having an identity as an “asexual” person has its benefits, both personally and politically. In the recent scientific and clinical literature, the words most widely used to describe asexual people have intimated, if not actively embraced, the language of illness and disease (e.g., “hypoactive sexual desire disorder”). In contrast, the word “asexual” is merely descriptive of the phenomenon and not laden with values; it does not imply that a specific level of sexual interest or attraction is correct and healthy. Thus, people who embrace the identity of an “asexual” are likely more positive about their self-image than those who are asexual but do not identify as such, and particularly relative to those who use medical or clinical language to describe themselves. People who embrace an identity as “asexual” are also, I expect, more likely to form a cohesive political group than those who do not identify as such and/or those who choose more medical or clinical language to describe themselves. Embracing an asexual identity also, in turn, potentially enables asexual people to change the medical establishment, or at least its rules for what is and what is not a mental illness. And they may succeed in doing so.

Summary

Identities allow us to know who we are and to stake our claim as unique and worthy of recognition. They also allow us to seek solace and comfort with, and forge ties to, those with whom we share commonalities. Identities also often emerge out of and serve social and political ends, allowing us to rally our group in defense of our interests.

Sexual identities are especially powerful components of the broader human identity process. That many asexual people still want, or are compelled, to forge a sexual identity (i.e., as an asexual) attests to the relevance and power of sex in our society. They are, like the potoroo, seemingly alone in a very large and different (sexual) world. Sexuality is also likely to be, at least for some, a very relevant personal construct, even if they do not engage in sex at all. It is as if these asexuals know that, on some very deep level, sex really matters in society, and therefore their own identities must also be defined by it, even if that identification takes on meaning because it is the polar opposite of sex. An asexual identity is also clearly relevant from a political standpoint, providing the ground support and a rallying point needed to change public perceptions and institutions that claim (or at least imply) that asexual people are ill or broken. That (public) identities are often political, and can serve as a way of gaining or defending psychic and other territory, is illustrated by the fact that groups often tend to lose their (unique) identity when the “war” is over and won (Associated Press, 2007; Scarr, 1987). For example, some recent stories on the gay and lesbian community illustrate how traditional elements of a gay/lesbian identity are being lost in the wake of increasing public acceptance. For asexual people, however, their war—and their need for a common identity to help fight it—has probably just begun.

CHAPTER 8 The Madness of Sex

One day in the locker room I overheard a conversation between a gregarious old man and his younger male friend. The conversation flitted among seemingly unrelated topics, but eventually landed on one that seemed to pique the old man’s interest more than others. He described, with some curiosity, how his interests in sex had changed: It no longer appealed. As an example, he noted that, these days, the famous and staggeringly popular Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, sent to him as part of his regular subscription to this magazine, was “wasted.” The bathing beauties (meant to remind avid sports fans that there was, after all, one additional, equally important reason to live) were just a bit of an oddity to him. They “did nothing” for him. He concluded, to his own amusement, that perhaps if these women were carrying a steaming-hot pepperoni pizza, then maybe they would pique his interest!

Most sexual people have an understanding of this old man’s feelings. Sexual people can go through periods in their lives when sex holds little interest for them. Perhaps a stressful job, a tough bit of schooling, or a family tragedy is the cause of these relatively transitory bouts of sexual disinterest. And, of course, on a shorter time scale, in any given day, people have periods when sex—even if the opportunity presents itself to have sex with an attractive partner—is not appealing, or at least not uppermost in one’s thoughts. We are routinely occupied by the day-to-day realities of life, and sex may seem very unappealing (or even a bit alien) at any given moment. Even average adolescent males or young men, whose sex drives are said to be like an endless well, have a “refractory period,” which refers to a state of disinterest (or no arousal) after sex.

In such relatively sexless states, one’s higher-order, analytical thinking may hold sway, and thus one may wonder what all the fuss is about (see also chapter 1): Why is sex such an important and powerful influence in one’s life? One may even have a curious feeling—an aha! moment—that sex, if the truth be told, is a curious, even peculiar, activity and preoccupation. At such times, one has caught a glimpse of what I call the madness of sex. You could also call it, perhaps, an asexual’s perspective on human sexuality.

Incidentally, I knew a college professor who called adolescence the state of “testosterone poisoning.” He was trying to be funny, of course, but his description of adolescence also captures the same underlying idea here: that the activities of, and preoccupation with, sex (along with the hormone that provides some of the motivation for it, testosterone) can be seen as a kind of odd—even mad—state of mind. And certainly, as mentioned in chapter 1, if one views sex from a distance (“deconstructs” it, if you will), it can be seen as comprising a host of symptom-like behaviors—obsessive thoughts, odd vocalizations, repetitive movements, and so on—reminiscent of a mental disorder.

Most, if not all, sexual people, then, may have some understanding of what it would be like to be asexual all the time. They might even wonder whether asexual people have a special knowledge, seeing sex for what it truly is: a rather strange preoccupation partly induced by a brain poison (i.e., hormones). Prepubescent children (i.e., before their hormonal surge) often have this view of sex, wondering why in heaven’s name would someone want to do that, as if it were as sensible and pleasurable as repeatedly sticking one’s finger in another’s ear. Perhaps prepubescence can