Understanding Asexuality

Hrabosky, & Perry, 2004; Mazur, 1986). Women compare their bodies to these “ideal” object-of-desire forms, as represented by supermodels and movie stars, even if the images of bodies portrayed are unrealistically thin or beautiful. But the vast majority of women cannot live up to these ideals. They ultimately put pressure on many women to make themselves beautiful and sexy—to become an ideal object of desire (see also chapter 6 on gender). Controlling food intake—through dieting—is a method women use to live up to this ideal and be maximally attractive to potential mates.

Somewhat in contrast, consider a second food/sex connection: Freud and other psychodynamically minded theorists have argued that overeating can result from defensive processes, including sublimation, or channeling ungratified sexual energy into another activity (in this particular case, eating).{There is some evidence that defensive processes can be involved with eating habits and disorders (Poikolainen, Kanerva, Marttunen, & Lonnqvist, 2001).} If this is true, one might wonder whether the current obesity epidemic is partly the result of such a process. Is there something about the modern Western world that is creating a slew of sexually unsatisfied humans channeling their hunger for sex into an appetite for potato chips and candy bars? I also have wondered whether the “middle-aged spread” of so many male suburbanites results from sublimation, when the harem-like pursuits of their teenage and twenty-something years are replaced by a thirty-something domestication: a less sexually stimulating, but more calming certainty of a one-woman marriage. However, one might argue that this reasoning is off base and that one should expect the exact opposite, as our sexual desires are presumably being met more in the modern Western world than they ever have been before (e.g., compare today with, say, the presumed innocence of the 1950s). Actually, I don’t think so. I think— again, perhaps in line with a quasi-Freudian interpretation—that our sexual desires are being met less than they ever have been. This is in part because the modern Western media are raising our sexual expectations, which seems to suggest that hyper-sexed athletes are the societal norm. Thus, even though the reality of people’s sex lives is staying the same, relative to our raised expectations, we are coming up short, sexually speaking.

Another food connection is this: Dietary practices are influenced by sex hormones. There is, for example, evidence that men and women differ in their taste preferences—men being more focused on meat and women being more focused on sweets and fats, a difference that occurs even in children (Caine-Bish & Scheule, 2009). This gender difference is related, at least indirectly, to sex hormones, because these hormones partly underlie sexual differentiation, the process whereby male and female fetuses differentiate before birth. There is also evidence that sex hormones play a role in women’s salt preferences across the menstrual cycle (Curtis & Contreras, 2006). Similar differences have been found in other species (e.g., salt preference over the estrus cycle in female rats). One reason women, relative to men, may have more of a craving for sweets and fats is to build up fat for their curvy bodies. Relative to women, men may crave meat more because their bodies require more protein to build muscle mass.{Even if one agrees that taste preferences are influenced by “sex” hormones, does this mean that “sexuality” causes these food preferences? For example, one could argue that the true sexual connection here is indirect at best, because these sex hormones influence food preferences through their effect on biological sex/gender, and not through their impact on “sexuality” per se. Thus, am I conflating sexuality influences with prenatal hormonal influences on biological sex and gender? Perhaps. As mentioned in chapter 6, however, sex and gender are so intertwined with sexuality, and vice versa, that to argue that only sex/gender (completely independently of sexuality) is a significant influence here is misleading. Also, given that these hormones vary across the menstrual cycle and evidently have an impact on food preferences, they are not just acting to cause “prenatal” sex/gender differences but also likely relate to day-to-day adult activities, including sexuality.}

Here is one final food example: Humans have long searched for the perfect aphrodisiac to drive their lovers wild and to increase their sex drive/potency. In fact, countless animals have been slaughtered and others driven to near extinction so that humans could extract and then ingest their body parts in the name of better sex. The Chinese seem especially susceptible to the (often misguided) notion that sexual powers reside in food, sometimes with dire ecological consequences. For example, the Chinese belief that the scales of the pangolin, or scaly anteater, have aphrodisiac qualities has led to the near extinction of this animal in Southeast Asia. Similarly, the Chinese belief in the aphrodisiac qualities of the rhino’s horn, with its suggestive phallic shape and angle, has also been this animal’s undoing, with it likewise being driven to near extinction. Of course, the fact that humans believe that sex and what we ingest are related, even if they are not (and thus foods have no true aphrodisiac qualities), is also testament to the fact that humans imbue nearly everything around us with special sexual meanings.

In short, it does not take long to find sexual connections to what seems like, on the surface at least, an aspect of our culture and lifestyle—food—that has no sexual relevance. For closure’s sake, let’s explore how these food examples might impact asexuality. In the first example, if dieting and related body-image issues are often driven by mating concerns, might asexual people never or rarely have dieting problems? Perhaps even a bolder prediction could be made: there may be no asexual bulimics (or at least no asexual people who have become bulimic). This is not to say that asexual women may not be concerned about their body image for reasons other than sex/mating (i.e., finding a romantic partner if romantically inclined) but I expect their body-image issues and control of food consumption to differ from those of sexual women.

Let’s return to the second example, and take, for the sake of argument, a skeptical view of asexuality, along with a Freudian bent. Some might argue that so-called asexual people are extremely repressed sexual people, and thus the level of sublimation in them should be even higher than in average sexual people. Hence, one might pose the following question, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek: Should all asexual people be fat? However, if there is no “sexual” psyche to operate on in asexual people, then sublimation should not occur (i.e., overeating or any other defensive behaviors to deal with this bottled-up sexual energy; see chapter 12 on humor and sex). Thus, should they be thin, or at least not overeat? There are some interesting studies that suggest that sexual energy in repressed men, after being stimulated by an attractive woman, is defensively discharged (e.g., by unknowingly creating sexual double entendres or “Freudian slips”; see chapter 12 on humor). If so, there may be future research studies examining how asexual people respond to such sexual cues. Also, if one disregards the quasi-Freudian analysis altogether (and some would certainly think it is bunk!), perhaps one should expect asexuals to become pleasantly plump, as their appetitive drives should be more focused on food (and not sex) in a culture that offers caloric abundance.

In the third example on taste preferences, should asexual people, if not only sexless but also somewhat genderless (see chapter 6), be immune to the influence of sexual hormones, not just in their sexual preferences, but also indirectly in food preferences? There could be some interesting studies waiting in the wings related to menstrual cycle fluctuations in asexual women, and the degree to which their food preferences are affected by such fluctuations.

Is there any research on food-related behavior and/or weight in asexual people? Not much. In one study, I found that asexuals were slightly lighter than sexual people (Bogaert, 2004). Does this mean, then, that they are less inclined to “sublimate” with food, because there is no sexual energy to sublimate? Not necessarily. These were average differences, and so there was certainly a range of weights for asexual people in that study. Moreover, the asexual people were slightly shorter, so the decreased weight might have been partly a function of the slightly smaller stature of asexual people relative to sexual people (see more on this in chapter 13). Third, in a follow-up study, I found no difference in weight between asexuals and sexual people (Bogaert, in press- a). Fourth, weight is, of course, a bit of a crude marker of food-related habits, some of which may still differ significantly between sexual and asexual people. Thus, more research needs to be conducted on food-related behaviors in asexual people. One thing is for sure, though, regarding eating habits and asexuality: Our planet would likely be a better place, ecologically speaking, if more people were asexual, because asexual people are not likely to hunt down animals to consume them for their real or imagined effect on increasing libido and potency.

Summary

In this chapter, I attempted to reveal how deeply embedded sex is in our lifestyle and culture, and to argue that it should give us pause when we think sex is removed from our day-to-day activities and even our loftiest of cultural practices. For example, our aesthetic sense is undoubtedly affected by our attractions, and our sexual attractions are particularly potent ones when artists apply paint to canvas (or create work in any other medium). Even food and its consumption—the example I chose because I felt, at least initially, that it is immune to the