Althouse: "It's hard to imagine what would push me to having sex. I'm not afraid of sex, it's just not something I want to do."

March 20, 2009

"It's hard to imagine what would push me to having sex. I'm not afraid of sex, it's just not something I want to do."

"That's probably why I delve into the world of science fiction and Transformers, where sex isn't an issue at all."

33 comments:

Revenant said...: Nothing surprising here. Not everybody has the same level of sex drive. Some people just can't get enough, while others occupy the other end of the bell curve.; 3/20/09, 3:43 PM
dbp said...: "In 1982, a survey of 'Playboy' magazine readers found that two percent of respondents were asexual."

So, there really are people who buy it for the articles.; 3/20/09, 3:49 PM
dbp said...: I can see an up-side to asexuality: I did fine in college, but imagine how well I could have done if the 90% of my brain dedicated to getting laid had been available for study?; 3/20/09, 3:51 PM
Simon said...: Constructing an asexual identity would seem a predictable response to sexual trauma - abuse is the obvious one, but also shyness, rejection, etc. (notice that the article does not include pictures of these folks).; 3/20/09, 3:51 PM
traditionalguy said...: This girl can not be real. She needs a dose of emotional arousal from a human source before she starts her own convent. That is sad that her toys are all she is wants a relatioship with. How about at least a pet?; 3/20/09, 3:54 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: As Barratt recognises: "Some people find the concept of asexuality incredibly difficult to grasp. They don't understand how you can be human and not want sex."

I don't see the great big problem here. We all felt that way as children--is it that hard to remember life before puberty?; 3/20/09, 4:00 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: As the article suggested, it is more than just merely a low sex drive. I know guys who have low sex drives, don't need a lot of sex (even when they were younger), but were never asexual. And, I know the opposite, guys who have a sex drive, just aren't driven to have sex with anyone.

I too wonder what it would have been like in my late teens, and in particular, in my early 20s, when I wasn't trying to get laid by pretty much any woman who walked in front of me. And, maybe too, whether I would have had different relationships if I had not been so driven to have sex with those women I ultimately was involved with.; 3/20/09, 4:14 PM
Revenant said...: So, there really are people who buy it for the articles.

The only reasons to buy Playboy are:

(1): You like the articles, or
(2): You don't have Internet access.; 3/20/09, 4:15 PM
Titusalwaysforgetshispassword said...: Sex is overrated.; 3/20/09, 4:35 PM
J. Cricket said...: It's sad, really, that you have celibacy on your mind right now.; 3/20/09, 4:44 PM
Wince said...: Then the lights go out and its just the three of us
You me and all that stuff were so scared of
Gotta ride down baby into this...

Tunnel of Love
by Bruce Springsteen

Fat man sitting on a little stool
Takes the money from my hand while his eyes take a walk all over you
Hands me the ticket smiles and whispers good luck
Cuddle up angel cuddle up my little dove
Well ride down baby into this tunnel of love
I can feel the soft silk of your blouse
And them soft thrills in our little fun house
Then the lights go out and its just the three of us
You me and all that stuff were so scared of
Gotta ride down baby into this tunnel of love
Theres a crazy mirror showing us both in 5-d
Im laughing at you youre laughing at me
Theres a room of shadows that gets so dark brother
Its easy for two people to lose each other in this tunnel of love
It ought to be easy ought to be simple enough
Man meets woman and they fall in love
But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough
And you've got to learn to live with what you cant rise above, if you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of love; 3/20/09, 4:47 PM
Anonymous said...: ...but imagine how well I could have done if the 90% of my brain dedicated to getting laid had been available for study?

Studying was always overrated, sex with the right person though....now we're talking about something worth remembering.; 3/20/09, 5:02 PM
KCFleming said...: People not doing things is usually anti-news.

For someone supposedly annoyed about inquiries into her asexuality, she sure likes to talk about it alot.

How intrusive do you really find these questions if you answer them ...in an online newsmagazine??

And don't women usually wait until marriage to declare their asexuality?; 3/20/09, 5:15 PM
Anonymous said...: And don't women usually wait until marriage to declare their asexuality?

And we have a winner!; 3/20/09, 5:19 PM
Charlie Martin said...: I actually know several people in fandom who are, for whatever reason, asexual. (I can see the notion that it comes from early trauma, but I was assured by one who became a close friend that she'd just never actually had any interest, no trauma involved.) SF fandom tends to be much more accepting of eccentricity than the mundane mainstream world.; 3/20/09, 5:37 PM
Jeremy said...: Seneca -
They're pining for the whole, "Sexy Alien Does Not Understand This Thing Called Love" phenomenon.; 3/20/09, 5:46 PM
dbp said...: Here is a 2nd vote for Pogo as winner of the thread...

"And don't women usually wait until marriage to declare their asexuality?"; 3/20/09, 5:56 PM
holdfast said...: Blogger dbp said...

Here is a 2nd vote for Pogo as winner of the thread...

"And don't women usually wait until marriage to declare their asexuality?"

Motion Carried!; 3/20/09, 6:18 PM
Simon said...: Seneca the Younger said...
"I actually know several people in fandom who are, for whatever reason, asexual. (I can see the notion that it comes from early trauma, but I was assured by one who became a close friend that she'd just never actually had any interest, no trauma involved.)"

Two clarifications of my earlier comment seem worthwhile. First, I'm using "trauma" very broadly (perhaps overly so), to include any event that leaves an emotional scar. So we're not only talking about abuse, but also things as mundane to some but profoundly affecting to others as rejection, feelings of low self-esteem (or, more particularly, the underlying events that cause such feelings), and so forth. Put another way, and at risk of being circular, I'm using "trauma" to refer to any external stimuli, caused or found, that can induce a person to construct a defense mechanism, and there are any number of psychologically affecting events that might cause one to construct asexuality as a defense mechanism.

It is, of course, an incomplete at best counterargument to point out that asexuality can develop as something other than a defense mechanism. That implies the second clarification: I don't mean to imply that only psychological trauma could induce such an attitude, but it seems by far the most likely explanation. To have no sex drive, a fortiori at that age (post-menopausal women, for example, are biologically a different story) is to buck extemely basic human wiring. Whether you want to attribute it to God or evolution, the desire for sex - as a proxy for the desire to reproduce - is a universal, basic, and fundamental human drive. To be sure, small percentages of people do naturally come out with deviant wiring; to give only two examples, some people are gay, some people like older women. It doesn't imply a value judgement of the proclivity to admit candidly that these are deviancies, and so-called "asexuality" is even more deviant, even more fundamentally at odds with basic human norms (far more so than the two just listed). That makes one inclined, while acknowledging the possibility that a small percentage may simply be wired that way, to suspect an external explanation.; 3/20/09, 6:49 PM
Penny said...: From that article:

"A study in the US found that 33.57 percent of asexuals have problems with self-esteem."

"The largest asexuality group on Facebook has 585 members."

Maybe some would disagree with me, but if those 585 Facebook members had a week-long meetup, we might have a few less asexuals driving home.

Course I love rebels, and every group has some.; 3/20/09, 6:50 PM
blake said...: There'd could be a physiology here, too.

I've always heard that wealth (a nation's wealth, that is) leads to lower reproduction rates, which I think is logical.

But what if there's a physiological factor, such as dietary shifts or other suppressors to "normal" sex drives.

Hyper-sexuality could be the same way, of course, which is why I put "normal" in quotes: You could be sexually suppressed by some factors, and sexually hyped by another, and you'd feel "normal" until the erectile dysfunction kicked in at 35.; 3/20/09, 7:48 PM
KCFleming said...: For many men, marriage is monasticism, but without the cool robes.; 3/20/09, 8:33 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: I have to admit that I sometimes feel like Andy Holland (the guy from the article). I mean, I seem to have a lot going for me, including being (so I'm told) ruggedly handsome. In fact, I've been mistaken for Nicolas Cage a couple of times.

Yet, sometimes, even so-called sexy women like Britney Spears or Madonna don't do it for me. Maybe I'm just waiting for the right woman, preferably the sexy librarian type. Lingerie is good too.

(P.S. I can be reached through my profile.); 3/20/09, 11:08 PM
Anonymous said...: I'm surprised that only 19% of women are asexual. It seems like it is much higher than that.; 3/20/09, 11:52 PM
Synova said...: Except that the article says that asexual people often have a sex drive and often masturbate. So it's not that they don't need that physical release and other people do.

How much of the drive to mate is cultural? Oh, yes, of course it's physical and the drive to reproduce has to be biological, but how much of the need, not to get "off" but to have a "boyfriend", is cultural pressure on women and girls? If you don't have a boyfriend, what's wrong with you?

It doesn't take many conversations with a girl who describes a boyfriend she doesn't even *like* and is afraid will break up with her, to notice a pattern.

And how much of the young male drive to get laid, rather than simply take the edge off one's own self, is a cultural proof of masculinity for the benefit of others? Perhaps the weird Japanese air-sex or dolls or whatever not-talking-to-real-girls thing isn't quite so unbelievably strange after all.; 3/21/09, 12:11 AM
ravenshrike said...: "That's probably why I delve into the world of science fiction and Transformers, where sex isn't an issue at all."

Ahem, Rule 34 of the internet. That is all.; 3/21/09, 12:49 AM
Gary Rosen said...: downtownlad:

"I'm surprised that only 19% of women are asexual. It seems like it is much higher than that."

How would you know?; 3/21/09, 3:51 AM
TMink said...: "is it that hard to remember life before puberty?"

Yes, it was several years ago! But I accept your point.

Trey; 3/21/09, 6:51 AM
TMink said...: I believe that some of these folks are sex blind like some people are color blind. It is a brain issue. Others are probably in the autism spectrum.

Others of them are certainly trauma survivors but that is none of our business.

I wonder if another part of the group are so perfectly narcissistic that they just never met anyone hot enough.

Trey; 3/21/09, 7:00 AM
Synova said...: I wonder if another part of the group are so perfectly narcissistic that they just never met anyone hot enough.

A close friend in college might have counted for that. Total and classic geek, too smart for his own good, barely socially literate, goofy looking... only and ever looked at cheerleaders.

There was certainly a girl somewhere out there who would have admired his brilliance and appreciated his humor and geeky interests... but she was probably not a perfect 10.; 3/21/09, 2:25 PM
blake said...: Synova--

I knew a lot of guys like that! And, weirdly, they had all kinds of ideas about how hot women all had hot cars and other oddnesses.

I surely remember life before puberty--and all the girls I had crushes on.; 3/21/09, 3:42 PM
theobromophile said...: Seems like a bell curve issue. There are people all along the spectrum in terms of desire, and it seems strange to claim that people are on one end of it only because of trauma.

Not to discount the very real feelings of people who go through their entire lives without experiencing sexual attraction for anyone, but there are some people who are just one-woman or one-man types. Other people just need a lot of time to develop a relationship, and to develop each stage of sexuality (which, contrary to modern thinking, is about more than intercourse).

I recall reading somewhere that over half of college-age men would sleep with a woman without kissing her, but very few woman would do the same. If lack of desire for activities like that are the definition of "asexuality" used to come up with the 19% figure, well, that makes sense, but it actually has very little to do with sexual attraction per se, and everything to do with the circumstances surrounding it.; 3/21/09, 4:25 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Here's something I don't understand. If you're asexual, and simply don't have sex, why is this something you need to publicly proclaim? Most likely no one will notice.

Usually you go public to defend something positive that you are doing. Gay rights are important to defend homosexual behavior. Otherwise, societal pressure and predjudice causes problems.

But if you simply do nothing...what's the social cost? People think you're gay? Or is it that if you never have a boyfriend or girlfriend that you're branded as a loser?

I think that's what it is. But why care about that if you're not trying to impress a potential partner? It doesn't make much sense to me. It seems like exhibitionism to loudly proclaim "I don't want to have sex." So what? Just don't. No one will care. What, are people going to make you get laid?

I know this because my sex life was indistinguishable from an asexual for far too long.; 3/22/09, 6:38 AM