asexuality

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Stumbled onto this interesting article about asexuality and marriage. Check it out:

We're Married, We Just Don't Have Sex

Interesting topic, even if the thread gets wonky... the concept of being asexual can be challenging for me to fully comprehend, as the drives and desires are part of my existence - trying to imagine those absent is very difficult. As for sexuality, while my experience has been with women, there are men I find attractive. It isn't a cognitive process, but resultant personal aesthetics. Perhaps ambisexual should be the word I use... anyway. To those who are asexual, how do you find it effects (or further effects) your interactions with society and their perceptions? Being already on the spectrum, do you notice a further differentiation?


M.

yes. No. It depends. Asexuality is an interesting term which has little to do with the actual psychology.
Everybody has more or less sexual interest depending on a bell curve. Nobodies truly asexual since we all have sex organs and hormones.

The underlying and more important truth is that having a different kind of mind can create situations where theres less focus on or some might say obsession with sex. A neutral third observer might point out that NTs and NT culture are obsessed and addicted to sex. Relative to that "norm" a person with a normally functioning sexuality might be considered "Asexual".

Theres a part of me that can be very "asexual" in that what is required to turn me on or maintain my sexual interest is much more complicated than what it is for NTs. On the other hand, I seem to have been born to explore the many far regions of human experience. I do enjoy sex, and I'd like to have more- but not any more outside my species and certainly not with NTs with IQs
under 130.

My suspicion is that there are only a very few number of people who could properly be termed "asexual" in that they occupy the very low interest end of the bellcurve. The rest of us aren't asexual as such, just more complicated than mere ape sexual interactions.

The things which turn on NTs increasingly have less and less interest for me as I have grown and evolved. I'd rather have a girlfiend co design space ships with me than have sex- but maybe first one and then the other.
More importantly, courting me would take a lot of time and require a whole lot of process.

I've had more sex than most NTs by a long shot. I have a 2-5 year cycle where for six months or a year I am hyper sexual and then i spend a year or two or three being celibate.

In some ways, this is the biggest, BIGGEST gap between me and everyone else. So much of culture is saturated with sex, either overtly or underlying. A lot of the times, my attention is directed at another aspect of something popular, or I simply don't "get" what's popular, because of that crucial lack of understanding of attraction and drive.

Forget my sensory issues, my obsessions and my shyness. If there's one thing about my behavior and lifestyle that makes people look at me funny, think I'm strange, even think I'm inhuman (and I HAVE heard that description of it used... along with "unnatural" and quite a variety of unpleasant names), it's the fact that I don't have any interest in getting in bed with someone naked, having them put something into an orifice of mine or making babies.

I would not change the way I am for various reasons, but it does make me sad... that the sort of companionship I most understand and value is so useless to many people, that my love is considered worthless, without this component. In some ways, I feel stuck in the elementary school mentality, where being someone's best friend forever was the highest compliment you could give them, and people genuinely believed in true love in the platonic, Disney sense of the word, and I wish that more people had stuck with that. "Adult relationships" seem so overrated and full of drama as far as I see it...

As for why autistics might be more prone to being ase... I think an above poster had a really good point about it being a sensory issue. Perhaps it's also the case that a lot of people have less of a sense that they "have" to be a certain way, live a certain life, because of not being as socially in tune as others? Like, a lot of people seem to be of the impression that they "have" to continue the family line, or be seen as responsible by having a family, or not be seen as a loser because they can't find a girl/man. Maybe the pressure is not so much felt by some of those with spectrum conditions. I know both apply to me, though there are other reasons as well.

BokeKaeru, thank you for taking the time to answer my question(s).


M.

I was told one time that I was "asexual"...I didn't know what they were talking about at the time, as english is not my first language...10+ years later, I wonder...sigh...although I actually think it has more to do with looking for a "mental" attraction...I think most women, although they don't only look at the physical, they are turned on by the physical aspect of a guy...I remember only being attracted to a man's chin, yes, that's right...chin...and other than that, it was their mind...I have never been into very macho type guys either...

Anecdotally, it seems like there are more people on the autistic spectrum who are something other than heterosexual.

It may just be that we're more honest about our (a)sexuality than the population at large, or maybe we really are more likely to have a minority sexual orientation.

For my part, I'm asexual. I first started investigating whether I might have Asperger's after I took Simon Baron-Cohen's EQ/SQ/AQ tests, which were posted on the Asexual Visibility and Education Network forums.

Excellent post, BokeKaeru. You hit upon every reason why I'm asexual.

Sensory issues--especially touch aversion/hypersensitivity--are a big hurdle for me. Eons ago, I tried to be part of a romantic relationship, but the physical part was too overwhelming for me. I've avoided such relationships ever since and don't miss them one bit.

I actually consider myself lucky to be asexual since I don't know how to cultivate relationships. Except for that one time, I've never had the choice to behave sexually with another person. Not sad but true.