You're The None For Me
You'll probably think I'm messing with you, but I swear I'm not. I am a man who has no desire to have sex. I was married, but after my wife got pregnant with our second (planned) child, we never had sex again. I just had -- and have -- no desire to do anything sexually with another person. I have now been divorced for 11 years and celibate for almost 21. Since my divorce, I have never hooked up or even gone on a date. I don't want to. Sometimes, I have an urge to masturbate, but I have no desire to involve anybody else. I simply don't get why there is all this kerfuffle about sex. I see no reason to ever have sex again.
--Curious As To Your Reaction
Like many men, you're looking to emulate something you saw in porn -- only it's the coffee table in the background.
Though you refer to yourself as celibate, celibacy is a behavior a person chooses -- a decision to fight off the urges most people have to hop on another person and do the humpus rumpus. What you have is a feeling -- a longing for sex on a par with the enthusiasm of a guest at a trendy cocktail party being offered a slightly squirming sushi appetizer: "Uh, thanks, but don't mind if I don't."
Assuming you've been checked out by a doctor for any possible medical issues, chances are you're "ace" -- as people who are asexual like to call themselves. Asexuality is a sexual orientation -- that of a person who, as social psychologist Anthony Bogaert puts it, has "a lack of sexual attraction or desire for others."
Asexuality is pretty uncommon. According to a survey that Bogaert did in the U.K., maybe 1 percent of the population has an asexual orientation. (This estimate may be on the low side, as it was done in 2004, long before the varieties of sexuality and gender began rivaling the choices in the salad bar at Souplantation.)
Asexuality plays out in varied ways. Some asexuals lack any interest in sex, finding it about as appealing as having another person stick a finger up their nose repeatedly (while panting, moaning, and shrieking in ecstasy). Others sometimes have urges for sexual release; they just have no desire to expand their dating pool beyond their hand. So, while sexual attraction involves noticing another person and wanting to do all sorts of sex things with them, asexuals might find a person aesthetically pleasing but are generally as sexually interested in them as most of us would be in an adding machine or a potato.
There are those who contend that asexuality is a physical or psychological disorder. And sure, some people probably use asexuality as a cover for unresolved issues or for shock value -- like my (decidedly straight) sister did in coming home from college freshman year and announcing to my conservative Republican mother, "I think I'm a lesbian." My mother handled this perfectly: "That's nice; please put out the plates for dinner."
Clinical psychologist Lori Brotto explains that asexuality doesn't meet the psychiatric bible's criteria for an arousal disorder -- physiological impairment or distress at the lack of attraction to others. Research by Brotto and others also finds that asexuals, in general, don't seem any crazier than the rest of us and have normal hormone levels and normal arousability, reflected in erectile function and vaginal lubrication. As one asexual put it: "I did, you know, test the equipment...and everything works fine, pleasurable and all; it's just not actually attracted to anything.''
Some asexuals get into relationships with other people because they want a partner and/or a family. (They're asexual, not aloving.) The problem comes if they don't disclose that their sexual orientation is "Do you mind if I read while you do that?"
As for your situation, if you don't feel there's anything missing from your life, well, yay for you. But consider the "self-expansion" model for romantic relationships, by psychologist Arthur Aron and his colleagues. It confirms what many of us intuitively understand: In addition to the ways a relationship challenges people emotionally, it expands who they are as individuals through exposure to their partner's ideas, identity, possessions, and social circle.
You might be able to have that sort of partnership -- with a girlfriend who likes the same hot stuff you probably do in bed (microwaved Chinese food). You can connect with like-minded individuals on the big forum for asexuals -- AVEN, the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (asexuality.org). You might make some friends, and who knows...you might even meet the woman of your dreams -- one who can't wait to go home with you for a long night of meaningless Scrabble.
I would be pretty unsurprised if asexuals were at 1%. Evolution doesn't like people who don't like having lots of babies.
FIDO at July 6, 2016 6:03 AM
LW is really a woman. Everyone knows, the thing that kills a woman's desire for sex is wedding cake... that, and dropping a pair of rugrats.
Honestly, I feel much the same way... at age 62, and finding that most women are not only unattractive-- obese, tattooed, immature, neurotic-- they positively bore me to death. I sure miss the 80's!
It's great to have my hobbies and other men to share them with.
jefe at July 6, 2016 5:23 PM
Hey Amy--check it out, evolution hates you, me, and the rest of the 30% or so of women over 30 who don't have or want kids. First Jesus decided he hated me because of the swearing and the kissing girls and boys and stuff. Now evolution's joined in. Guess I'll have to seek consolation in the arms of Satan . . . again . . .
Anathema at July 6, 2016 7:25 PM
Don't worry. Satan is 'fixed' so he can't get you preggers. After having sired Hillary and Trump, well...he is finished with kids.
FIDO at July 7, 2016 2:52 AM
I would be pretty unsurprised if asexuals were at 1%. Evolution doesn't like people who don't like having lots of babies.
This runs in the same ballpark as the number of people who are truly homosexual: 1 to 2 percent.
Of course, you can already hear the screams of protest from the LGBTXYZ activists, who want us to believe the number is 10 times as high.
Homosexuality is nothing more (or less) than a birth defect. As such, it deserves the same degree of sympathy as any other such problem. After all, the affected person cannot change the way they are.
a_random_guy at July 7, 2016 12:10 PM
Homosexuality is nothing more (or less) than a birth defect.
To be successful -- to thrive (or at least not go extinct) -- a species needs to reproduce. Since gays & lesbians, throughout history, undoubtedly have not pumped out as many babies per capita as we straight people have, one can argue they have been defective in this sense.
But, in the present day, with such a crushing number of human beings on the planet, rapaciously burning through resources, shitting all over the planet (metaphorically and literally), I'd turn that around and argue that prolific breeders, straight people, are the defect. Human beings have been wildly successful. The Earth doesn't need more and more and more and more people. The Earth could desperately use more human beings who don't pump out more human beings.
JD at July 7, 2016 9:28 PM
"Homosexuality is nothing more (or less) than a birth defect."
Are you actually fucking serious right now? Or are you like Trump and just blasting a whole lot of ignorant bullshit for the attention?
Spina bifida is a birth defect. Congenital heart disease is a birth defect. Cleft palette, club foot, hydrocephalus is a birth defect. Homosexuality is not.
Your attitude is defective. I'd say read a book, but you'd probably eat it. Educate yourself by getting to know members of the LGBT community. You might just surprise yourself.
wtf at July 7, 2016 11:00 PM
Homosexuality is nothing more (or less) than a birth defect.
Easy there guy.
It's not settled science, but there is work being done on the idea that throwing the occasional gay child is a side effect of increased fertility. The biological pathways are circuitous and complicated, but that's how biology works.
In a traditional small village setting this would also give you the odd extra adult to help raise/feed/protect these huge batches of children. These gay adults would not breed directly (well not much) but by assisting with their many nieces and nephews they are in fact promoting and passing on their genes, the same as anyone else.
It is not our primary reproductive strategy, but nature does like to have more than one arrow in her quiver.
So ease up on the gays, they are the way they were made, working their way through a world they never created, same as anybody else.
kenmce at July 8, 2016 6:00 AM
The more I think of it, the weirder Anathema's comment is.
Her and her cohort of 30% of over 30 women have this little thing called a CHOICE. She can or can not breed according to the dictates of her will, bank account and dating prospects. (One wonders how many of that cohort chooses that option because they are unknowingly practicing BCBP [Birth Control By Personality])
An asexual does not have a choice. It is who they are.
So a woman fighting baby rabies at 35 so she can continue to vacation in St. Barts or just because she feels she would not be a good mother is a far different animal than a person who has to fight the shudders as someone touches their shoulder.
Anathema, sometimes a post is not about you at all.
But enjoy Satan. I hear he is a great first date.
FIDO at July 8, 2016 8:32 PM
I too was surprised by the passion and direction of Anathema's post.
To me FIDO's post was about the slim odds humans had of surviving (infant and adult mortality must have been really high so babies must have been popping out non-stop).
Difficult to believe we made it unless there were lots of humanoids out there that we don't know of.
Bob in Texas at July 9, 2016 6:33 AM
"Homosexuality is nothing more (or less) than a birth defect."
From an "humans must breed to survive" evolutionary viewpoint maybe but the word choice? Ouch!
I think a review of all writings (including Biblical) I think homosexuality has been w/us since day one, and was not considered unusual in some societies (Spartan?).
I also think that societal pressure/expectations caused them to marry and produce offspring just like everyone else. See "Humans must breed ... "
Bob in Texas at July 9, 2016 6:42 AM
I know, right, Bob
If I have a tribe of a hundred people and 10 are asexual and asexuality is genetic, well...at the end of a couple of generations, you aren't going to have too many asexual people any more, will you? I am sure some would be badgered into procreating, like the LW, but over time...well...that 1% is a pretty high number unless it is a recessive gene.
Now if it is caused by some kind of trauma, that is a different story.
FIDO at July 9, 2016 9:29 AM
A follow-on comment to my response above: To be successful -- to thrive (or at least not go extinct) -- a species needs to reproduce. Since gays & lesbians, throughout history, undoubtedly have not pumped out as many babies per capita as we straight people have, one can argue they have been defective in this sense.
Typically, a defect is something that needs to be corrected (or that you want to correct.) Even if one considers homosexuality to be a defect in the sense I noted above, it's not a defect that needs to be corrected. There's absolutely no need to turn gays and lesbians into people who marry someone of the opposite sex and pump out babies like we straight people do. If there's a need to do anything with reproduction, it's stopping straight people from pumping out so many babies.
JD at July 10, 2016 11:36 AM
Any trait that wasn't in the original human genome is a genetic defect.
We get variation from defects.
Katrina at July 13, 2016 10:01 AM
@"If I have a tribe of a hundred people and 10 are asexual and asexuality is genetic, well...at the end of a couple of generations, you aren't going to have too many asexual people any more, will you?"
You will if it turns out that, say, trait A happens to correlate with some other trait that does enhance fitness of the *overall* population (e.g. as a slightly exaggerated example, if, say, it turned out asexuality correlated with being good at guarding the tribe from predators at night since those individuals spent less time having or pursuing sex and were better focused on that task, or something).
It may also be that asexuality is not genetic, but environmental.
The term "defective" is nearly meaningless (especially in the context used here), but if we were to try come up with a rational definition of "defective" it would probably be some trait that is overtly harmful (dysfunctional) to an individual possessing that trait - but even then it could be defined relative to the evolutionary environmental fitness context or with reference to other individuals in the group. E.g. a trait that is "defective" relative to the individual might be beneficial to others in the population or to one's offspring (e.g. a trait that predisposes one to risk-taking behavior and/or to altruism). A trait that is "defective" in one environmental context (habitat) may also be beneficial in others (e.g. having gills is beneficial if you live on land that breathing system will kill you in minutes, as a simplistic example).
Lobster at July 29, 2016 2:33 AM
Leave a comment