asexuality/celibacy

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
was reading a piece on this in the observer yesterday.

now i know theres a diff between being celibate and being asexual, but i wonder if celibacy could be more of a lifestyle choice as a reaction to hypersexuality in the modern world.
 
Last edited:

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
it was an interesting article.

Also raises the q of what sexual desire actually is, given that it can be projected onto almost anything (ie anything can be a fetish). And so does being asexual mean lacking that ability or wish to project?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Didn't read the article but I've read about this before. Interesting, especially in the world we live in. Also seen interviews with people who say that they lost their sex-drive totally after a certain age. I find that interesting because they can compare the two states. They definitely seemed (or claimed to be) happier when their dick stopped telling them what to do.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
it was an interesting article.

Also raises the q of what sexual desire actually is, given that it can be projected onto almost anything (ie anything can be a fetish). And so does being asexual mean lacking that ability or wish to project?

I don't think asexuality can be reduced to a tendency not to fetishize. A fetish is the sexualisation of something that's not inherently sexual, isn't it? If you're just attracted to someone because, er, you find them attractive, that's not a fetish, as I understand the term.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Well you can fetishise things that are inherently sexual I think. Body parts or positions or whatever.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Well yeah but if you fancy someone just because you think they're hot that's different from being massively obsessed with feet (or even tits, or whatever). I don't think fetishism is a precondition for sexual attraction, anyway.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah, I don't think fetishisation is necessarily a pre-condition for sexual attraction. I'm just saying that it's not the fetishised thing that creates a fetish but rather the way that it is treated. That's my understanding anyway.
 

slowtrain

Well-known member
I think I might be asexual.

It is very funny though, because really I think the main problem that I struggle with is - what the hell actually is sex?

I mean I love cuddling and snuggling and having make out sessions, I love bodies both mine and others.

But I have no interest in busting a nut in a bitch.


I think maybe I am not so much asexual as a lesbian woman trapped in a mans body.

So that is my question for this thread:

what actually is sex?!
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I don't think asexuality can be reduced to a tendency not to fetishize. A fetish is the sexualisation of something that's not inherently sexual, isn't it? If you're just attracted to someone because, er, you find them attractive, that's not a fetish, as I understand the term.

well, the idea is that everything is open to be fetishised, that nothing is inherently sexual (or not inherently sexual, depending on how you look at it, i guess). not saying i know where i stand on this, but it's certainly a body of thought (as it were)...

i always think of the derek and clive 'getting the horn' sketch when I have this conversation...

in (some) psychotherapeutic terms sexual desire would be linked to cathecting an object/investing it with libidinal energy (not sure if i have the terms right), i think.

and there's also the matter of why you find people attractive - it's so intensely subjective that it's bound up with lots of things in one's head. And how much finding 'typically attractive' people attractive because society deems them attractive and you've absorbed that throughout your life etc etc....
 
Last edited:

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
well, the idea is that everything is a possible fetish, that nothing is inherently sexual (or not inherently sexual, depending on how you look at it, i guess).

I think whoever said that might have been talking out of their (no doubt highly fetishised) ringpiece.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I think whoever said that might have been talking out of their (no doubt highly fetishised) ringpiece.

why? there's nothing that sex is necessarily about, other than some kind of exercise of libidinal energy (insert any less wanky term you like). it's (obv) not definitively about procreation, it's not about anything you can pin down very easily (which is totally consistent with the fact that for a lot of people it represents the same/very similar things, or at least seems to).

as slowtrain says, what is sex? very good question. Defining what it is/what is and what isn't 'natural' has of course been used in the past (and continues to be, obv) to very nefarious means.

that's why i'm not sure what 'asexual' would exactly mean, or whether it's another way of telling people they're not 'normal'.
 
Last edited:

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Well yeah but if you fancy someone just because you think they're hot that's different from being massively obsessed with feet (or even tits, or whatever). I don't think fetishism is a precondition for sexual attraction, anyway.

why do you think they're hot? cos their nose is just the right distance from their mouth, and their eyes are just *this* far apart? or because their personality has this something you can't define, which does it for you but for soemone sitting next to you is completely not there?

can't pretend i know the answer of course, but it's clear something is going on when one person finds another attractive, that is not just inexplicable 'magic'/is only expicable by 'because i just do'. Particularly when you don't know the person from Adam/Eve.

Edit: Point being that this is just as much a fetish as anything else, in the sense that it's something unique(ish) to you that leads you to project your libido onto that.
 
Last edited:

slowtrain

Well-known member
Yeah wikipedia is no help in defining sex, it more often that not uses the word sex to explain what sex is.

Human sexual activities or human sexual practices or human sexual behavior refers to the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts from time to time, and for a wide variety of reasons. Sexual activity normally results in sexual arousal and physiological changes in the aroused person, some of which are pronounced while others are more subtle. Sexual activity also includes conduct and activities which are intended to arouse the sexual interest of another, such as strategies to find or attract partners (mating and display behavior), and personal interactions between individuals, such as flirting and foreplay.

Actually I been thinking about this and I guess it is just one of those silly words that are only defined in relation to a gazillion other things.

I think this is the difficulty with being 'asexual'
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
why? there's nothing that sex is necessarily about, other than some kind of exercise of libidinal energy (insert any less wanky term you like). it's (obv) not definitively about procreation, it's not about anything you can pin down very easily (which is totally consistent with the fact that for a lot of people it represents the same/very similar things, or at least seems to).

Fair enough, but I would say that sex organs themselves are inherently sexual - I mean, that's what they're actually for - in a way that feet, say, are not. Yes some people have a foot 'thing', it's one of the commoner fetishes AFAIK, but for most of us they're a means of getting around the place rather than getting off. Whereas for the vast, vast majority of people, 'sexual activity' will at some point involve a man's outy bits and/or a woman's inny bits. Even foot nuts probably don't just rub their feet against someone else's feet (I should imagine!).
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Fair enough, but I would say that sex organs themselves are inherently sexual - I mean, that's what they're actually for - in a way that feet, say, are not. Yes some people have a foot 'thing', it's one of the commoner fetishes AFAIK, but for most of us they're a means of getting around the place rather than getting off. Whereas for the vast, vast majority of people, 'sexual activity' will at some point involve a man's outy bits and/or a woman's inny bits. Even foot nuts probably don't just rub their feet against someone else's feet (I should imagine!).

Yep, maybe as the subject for sexual activity, genitals are involved because they're so bound up with pleasure (clitoris particularly good example cos pleasure is its only function), but the object of sexual pleasure/arousal is far less defined. If it was just about genitals, anyone would fuck anyone/anything in any state as long as it had a vagina/penis (i know this is some people's sexual direction, but you know what i mean!).

And the sexual organs themselves of course can be fetishised to be seen as more or less attractive (vaginal surgery). Sex is fetish; why do people get excited by certain things? Also porn and many other societal representations of sex are massively interesting here in the way that they actually shape people's desires.

It's complicated. Need to read more!

Suppose this all connects with the idea that sexuality is not innate, but a consequence of things within oneself and one's history that can't simply be dismissed as genetic/'it just is'.

The pragmatic problem in discussing this is obviously that the right wing has defined the terms of the debate and cornered non-normative sexualities into fiercely adopting the "natural" discourse.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
this is the kind of thread that makes me miss, you know, my favorite dissensus poster evar.

genitals are involved because they're so bound up with pleasure (clitoris particularly good example cos pleasure is its only function), but the object of sexual pleasure/arousal is far less defined. If it was just about genitals, anyone would fuck anyone/anything in any state as long as it had a vagina/penis (i know this is some people's sexual direction, but you know what i mean!).

this is what i don't understand, how can asexuals not want sex when their genital AND visual/sexual stimulation seem to be at the same level of sensitivity and function seemingly the same way as sexuals?

from article:
research shows there is no gender split; men and women are equally likely to be asexual. However, asexual men are much more likely to masturbate than asexual women; as likely, it would seem, as men with "normal" sex drives, suggesting that they are responding to a physical imperative. When Brotto conducted an experiment to measure the vaginal reactions of female participants to visual sexual stimulus, the physical reactions among asexual women were the same as that of women who report an otherwise "normal" sex drive. Brotto also says there is nothing to suggest that asexual people are any more or less likely to have suffered childhood abuse than anyone else.

huh?

Also porn and many other societal representations of sex are massively interesting here in the way that they actually shape people's desires.

this is probably a different topic entirely but yes... people whose first sexual experiences, sometimes for years, are with various representations of a partner or physical objects rather than another human have got to be completely screwed up in some fundamental way.

Suppose this all connects with the idea that sexuality is not innate, but a consequence of things within oneself and one's history that can't simply be dismissed as genetic/'it just is'.

i would say Sexuality is entirely a cultural construct, yet one that is based on biological impulses. does that make sense? that it's not just a combination of the 2...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
This:

research shows there is no gender split; men and women are equally likely to be asexual. However, asexual men are much more likely to masturbate than asexual women; as likely, it would seem, as men with "normal" sex drives, suggesting that they are responding to a physical imperative.

is not necessarily paradoxical. Men's bodies produce semen all the time and if enough of it builds up, it can be physically uncomfortable. It needs to get out.

And it's not just asexuals that can divorce physical pleasure from sexual desire. An ex of mine, who generally had a pretty high sex drive, once told me that sometimes when she masturbates she isn't thinking about anything sexual at all, but just enjoying the sensation. Which, to me, sounds crazy, but there you go.
 
Last edited:
Top