Poll: What's your sexual orientation?

Hap2

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May 26, 2010
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subtlefuge said:
I'm still unconvinced that asexuality is a valid sexual orientation, largely because it's the only one based on a negative statement (or lack of). I definitely am open and accepting of anyone regardless of preference, orientation, or lack of orientation, but I'm not convinced that never experiencing sexual arousal isn't symptomatic of a disease or defect of some kind.

The fact that 6% of people on this poll self-identify as asexual really makes it into a kind of joke. Heck, half the posts say "I'm hetero/homosexual, but might as well be asexual." If people can choose it, it can't fall under the same umbrella.

I still will treat anyone with the respect that I would expect, but I've never heard a convincing or passionate argument from an asexual person that makes me believe it's an orientation instead of a state of being, disability, mental illness, or lifestyle choice.
A few things:

1) Being asexual has little to do with libido or how much sex a person wants or needs, and more to do with with whom they're attracted to. Asexuals aren't attracted to any gender when it comes to sexual relationships. Can they fall in love, or become infatuated with others? Yes, but it's guaranteed it won't be for sexual reasons. The human brain is much more complex than the concept of orientation can provide for.

2) Some people are, in fact, young, and as an old asexual acquaintance of mine used to say, they won't be necessarily lifelong asexuals. I'm old enough and have experimented enough to say with some certainty that I have no desire for a sexual relationship with any gender; no gender in particular interests me, and I would rather be reading, writing, drawing, or cycling than have or pursue sex. That's just how I am. I'm mentally and physically healthy, given my circumstances and profession, and sure as hell didn't choose this (I've made the mistake of trying to force myself to be otherwise in the past, it doesn't work, and I won't go into detail; I'm sure any gay or bi person who has tried the same will know what I am talking about). Being what I am indeed bothered me in the past, as I am analytical and understand the implications and possible hazards of living what might become a solitary life, but that's not going to change much. I can't say I've come to terms with it fully yet, but I'm much more comfortable than I used to be.

The whole concept of orientation is bunk to me, however. Human sexuality is much more complex than just with whom one wants to fuck, after all. These orientation labels are just convenient words that we use so we don't have to go into long tirades about who or what we want or don't want to mash our private parts together with: the old human instinct to throw things into boxes so the brain doesn't have to think as hard when it might need to react to a more pressing concern, such as a predator, the need for food, etc.

3) 5.8% or so isn't much, especially on a forum like this one, and even more so when the overwhelming majority are straight people at 68.6%. Most people need some form of social interaction, even the most asocial of us, and asexuals are less likely to congregate in typical places and wooing grounds, e.g. bars. It's not surprising at all to see a small bunch on a gaming forum.
 

DANEgerous

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Jan 4, 2012
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You know I Posted this to ask a deeper question. On my Furaffiny profile I have quote
"Sexuality: If you are attractive to me you are. That simple, this whole straight or gay thing confuses me. So yes Bi" and that is perhaps the most perfect understanding I have. To me it is anod fact that the more sexulized a woman is the less subtractive she is. Massive tits and a slut pose? Not for me. But if you are are a guy with a huge cock and slut pose Fuck YEAH! I just... I don't get sexuality.
 

Mikejames

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subtlefuge said:
I still will treat anyone with the respect that I would expect, but I've never heard a convincing or passionate argument from an asexual person that makes me believe it's an orientation instead of a state of being, disability, mental illness, or lifestyle choice.
Keep working on that. We're no more defective than any other procreative dead-end of an orientation.
 

Musette

Pacifist Percussionist
Apr 19, 2010
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Hap2 said:
First of all, thank you for that. Some of the reactions concerning asexuality on this thread were bothering me. (Though, I admit some of the asexual responses were eyebrow-raising as well.)


Okay, onto the topic at hand. I'm an asexual female, and since I guess it's relevant, I'm aromantic as well, so I've never been attracted to anybody sexually or romantically. Unlike some of the other self-proclaimed asexuals on here, I can understand why people can benefit from romantic/sexual relationships, even if they don't really apply to me. I don't feel particularly advantaged or disadvantaged because of my orientation. People tend to just assume I'm straight, so nobody tends to ask me about my sexuality, so it's just a non-factor in my day to day life.

I was originally convinced that I was "straight by default", so I entered relationships thinking that the attraction would kick in later. I think I've made enough tries to realize that method wasn't working, but I also assumed I was a late bloomer, so to speak.

Actually, near the end of my first year of college, right before I discovered asexuality, I was about to make a thread on the Escapist asking how old everyone was when they first felt sexually attracted to somebody, but I consulted Google instead, and after a while, I started stumbling into asexual resources, and I finally put the pieces together.

Hopefully, I'm no inviting hostility unto myself for being another asexual on these forums, as if having more than 1% means that you're over the asexual quota or something. Not to mention that voluntary Internet polls are hardly reliable statistics, so these numbers might be skewed anyways.
 

Sack of Cheese

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Sep 12, 2011
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Chromatic Aberration said:
KamiAmaya said:
Asexual female with a tendency to squee over sexy guys. Can I acknowledge they're sexy? Yeah. Would I want any of them to f--- me? Oh god no. At least not as a female. If I had the time/money/effort I would be a transsexual homosexual.

So I guess that makes me a homosexual guy trapped in an asexual woman's body.
Interesting. Sounds a little bit like a case of autoandrophilia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoandrophilia#Autogynephilia_and_autoandrophilia] to me...
Sweet rides on fancy horses! How many sexuality is there exactly? Have we named all of them yet?
The more I read about it, the more complicated humanity's psychology becomes.
 
Apr 8, 2010
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Sack of Cheese said:
Sweet rides on fancy horses! How many sexuality is there exactly? Have we named all of them yet? The more I read about it, the more complicated humanity's psychology becomes.
As someone who tends to skim through the relevant journals I have the lingering suspicion that we only barely scratched the surface on that topic in terms of academic research. In terms of semantics one usually differentiates between sexual orientation and paraphilias - the latter is classified as a disorder in the DSM and (if I'm not mistaken) the ICD-10. However, there is considerable debate as to what constitutes a paraphilia and if it is even in need of treatment in most cases and should be a category in the DSM at all. Also factor in the numerous variations represented in various fetishes and you are in for a veritable clusterfuck.

Suffice to say, I think we only recently (i.e. with the Internet) have become able to see how deep the rabbit-hole really goes in that regard. If you want to read up on what's possible, there is an interesting blog by some psychology professor [http://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/] who has a habit of investigating them.
 

Sack of Cheese

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Chromatic Aberration said:
As someone who tends to skim through the relevant journals I have the lingering suspicion that we only barely scratched the surface on that topic in terms of academic research. In terms of semantics one usually differentiates between sexual orientation and paraphilias - the latter is classified as a disorder in the DSM and (if I'm not mistaken) the ICD-10. However, there is considerable debate as to what constitutes a paraphilia and if it is even in need of treatment in most cases and should be a category in the DSM at all. Also factor in the numerous variations represented in various fetishes and you are in for a veritable clusterfuck.

Suffice to say, I think we only recently (i.e. with the Internet) have become able to see how deep the rabbit-hole really goes in that regard. If you want to read up on what's possible, there is an interesting blog by some psychology professor [http://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/] who has a habit of investigating them.
I'd imagine years from now on people won't even bother talking about it unless it's something notable like pedophilias and such.
And then we would all laugh about it "Haha, remember the time when we tried to name them all?"
 
Apr 8, 2010
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Sack of Cheese said:
I'd imagine years from now on people won't even bother talking about it unless it's something notable like pedophilias and such.
Let's us hope that this will happen though I'm not sure that the reactionist forces don't eventually win out.

And then we would all laugh about it "Haha, remember the time when we tried to name them all?"
Hmmm sadly not so easy, this is what Science does after all - it classifies and models to eventually derive applications and explanations from it. Ideally, there will be a comprehensive and effective set of labels for all of them. Again, we are just at the start of investigating this stuff it seems considering the numerous philias one can (and does) define.
 

red_bedbug

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Sep 28, 2013
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Isn't pansexual on the list? Damn. :D

To clarify:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansexuality

More or less figured this out a while back when someone asked me "If your partner was to undergo a sex change, would you still date them?" and I answered yes without a second thought.