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Guest column by Sara Beth Brooks: 'Discussing Asexuality & Creating Change'

Started by Butterfly, February 10, 2011, 05:12:57 PM

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Guest column by Sara Beth Brooks: 'Discussing Asexuality & Creating Change'
Pam's House Blend
by: Pam Spaulding
Thu Feb 10, 2011 at 14:00:00 PM EST


http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/18630/guest-column-by-sara-beth-brooks-discussing-asexuality-creating-change


Discussing Asexuality & Creating Change

By Sara Beth Brooks

When I signed up online to attend last year's Creating Change conference in Dallas, I was asked to fill in my sexual orientation. I checked "queer," but that isn't wholly accurate; Asexuality wasn't listed as one of the orientations that you could select.

Throughout the 2010 Conference, I found and bonded with several other asexual LGBT organizers. Each of us expressed concern about the lack of discussion about asexuality at the conference, so we went as a group to the feedback session when the conference ended. I stood up and spoke about the fragmentation of the asexual community, and how useful it would be to collect that demographic at registration so that we could connect to each other. Another person got up and talked about how he's seen the evolution of LGBT language over time to include the transgender community, and now he hopes it will be no different with the asexual community.
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E

As an asexual, myself, I have to say I agree with what the article says. I mean, I didn't even know there was such a thing until I was 16, and only by finally accepting that truth about myself was I able to begin working towards accepting myself as trans. Asexual people don't face a lot of formal discrimination, but I've lost count of the number of times I've gotten comments like "What's wrong with you?" and "No offense, but if you don't want sex, I don't think you're really human." Literally every single time the topic has been brought up, someone has piped up with that kind of comment.

Also, do note that asexuality is not the same as a low sex drive. I personally have a high sex drive - I just don't ever find myself attracted to anyone, and masturbation really provides all the sexual release I need. Neither is it not wanting sex. After transition, I'd love to try out having sex. I just don't feel any need to, or any sexual attraction.
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spacial

Backing up some of the points made by E.

I am asexual. I can look at male and female bodies and appreciate their beauty. I went through the phase that most teenagers do, when the ugly bits demanded attention. But the obscession that some seem to have, for repeated sexual relief has always been alien to me.

On the first video, on the link, the interviewer after being told by the guy, that he has no desire for sex, asks if he is gay. That about sums it up really. I always avoided saying I was gay, simply because of the attitude that gay people are promiscuious and any gay will do. For the interviewer and my own experience backs this up, gay is a dismissal for anything that is different.

On the sexuality forum, I asked if anyone has ever expereinced a high after climaxing. I asked this because I understand that most do. I don't. Generally it's just a disappointment. When I was younger, the disappointment was usually depressing. Later, once I'd accepted that the high isn't going to happen, it became a relief that I'd managed it. Rather like carrying a really heavy box, to the top of the stairs and finally putting it down.

In the second video, the same guy is surrounded by three rather terrifying women. One asks, if it isn't a problem, why organise? The answer would seem obvious, so that people, especially young people, don't feel like freaks because they don't have the same obscessions as others.

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