I read an interesting article today, at http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=are-there-asexuals-among-us-on-the-2009-10-29.
I've heard of asexuality before. I'm not talking about the high school biology kind of asexuality, where single-celled organisms reproduce by fission. I mean the so-called "fourth orientation." Someone who describes themselves as asexual lacks the desire to have sex with either gender. It seems to be very difficult to categorize oneself as asexual though, since it requires one to recognize the lack of something that he or she has never experienced to begin with. How do you know you're missing something if you lack the experience necessary to properly understand and define it?
At one point years ago I thought I might be asexual. Now I'm revisiting that possibility. Of course, these days I have a more open view of sexuality and view it on a multi-dimensional continuum. I know I've used my "compass" metaphor in my ramblings here before. To reiterate, the length of the compass needle represents the intensity of one's sexual desire, and the direction it is pointing describes the orientation. My difficulty in determining the direction is largely due to the lack of intensity.
Now that I've read that article and browsed through some of the internet discussions about asexuality, I'm beginning to wonder if I've EVER really experienced "sexual attraction." I know I'm not comfortable with labeling what I feel towards guys "sexual attraction." I like looking at attractive guys, and often feel drawn toward interacting with them. But this is not accompanied by sexual fantasies or a desire to see them naked or do anything sexual with them. The same goes for girls. I actually had a drunk girl try to climb into bed with me fairly recently and I had no problem resisting (to be fair, I had to leave for an interview the next day, haha). I had no primal urges to speak of there either.
So I guess what I'm getting at . . . can anyone describe for me what sexual attraction feels like? I know I'm pretty much asking this to an almost empty room since not many know I'm (tentatively) starting this up again.
On a related note, I found this blog . . . thereisnocloset.blogspot.com Interesting blog from an asexual perspective.
B
1 comment:
Hmm, sometimes I wonder if I'm asexual as well, actually. How does one accurately measure sexual attraction? Is it (for guys) getting an erection at the sight of someone? If that's the case, it's only happened a handful of times (at best) to me.
Well, whatever it is, it's a tough thing sorting out one's feelings, attractions, and one's intensity on top of it all!
Post a Comment