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Asexuality is fine, but there are lots of people who don't want to be in that relationship and they should not have to be. Dan has been very consistent and clear about this, I really don't understand the issue.
...uh...slog? Whaddup?
@1 She's an undergrad in gender studies. What the hell do you expect? Rationality?
Reading it caused me to not just lose interest in sex, but in life itself.
Well I think most of us operate by the english meaning rather than the scientific one. Which does have a element of strange or bad to it.
But that is the point, Dan never said abnormal
Call me old-fashioned, but isn't a very close asexual relationship just a friendship? Like... bromance?
And if you don't need to deal with all of the processing and insecurity that goes along with sexual relationships... why would you ever choose to?
I was depressed for ages, was happy to snuggle my girlfriend, and could not for the life of me work up any actual interest in sex. The depression was treated... And then I got off the meeds altogether... And hello! Normal - cough, excuse me - average sex drive! Or above average, if I may boast.
Just seems like an asthmatic identifying as a Cougher, and not trying to treat their asthma.
Dear self-righteous asexuals who enjoy feeling victimized and/or soapboxing,
Please go and educate people who actually require education. There are very few people left in the sex-positive, educated, accepting world (y'know, pretty much all readers of Dan Savage, for a start) who haven't clicked over to any given resource and run through the various over-intellectualized terms for every possible gradation of human sexuality. (I don't know what it is with "the asexual community," but its spokesfolks are really, REALLY into making everyone use exhaustively correct terms for everything and always constructing every sentence so as to never take a risk at seeming insensitive ever.) It's a legitimate use of time and energy to educate the general populace about asexuality, to help free people who really have felt harassed and abandoned and to guide their families and loved ones to understanding. Go and do that. Clever, tech-savvy people who read sex advice columns know asexuality is a thing. They do not have to listen to your canned tirades that don't address any of the issues at hand. You sound like a creationist who jumps into any discussion about science with misinformed talking points about why "evolution" isn't a thing.
If you really want asexuality to be an accepted thing, then what you want is equality, not to be special. Just like the behavior of gay men into barebacking can be criticized without there being any homophobia before, people can say things about asexuals that isn't "Asexuality is made of glitter and bunny rabbits!" without you needing to defend yourself from all the badness, kay?
Sincerely,
An asexual who's aware of real problems (Oh, sorry, everyone who was about to start yelling that I just don't understand your horrible plight.)
/snort/ What? Huh, someone was talking?
Must!
Oh for fuck's sake. It is beyond irresponsible for universities to send people out into the world with such esoteric and bloody useless degrees. The humanities proper aren't exactly doing well; I can't imagine these myriad pseudo-sciences could be doing any better.
There's something about undergrad Gender/Sexual Studies majors that in unbelievably douchy. I mean, you generally don't see an undergrad in engineering lecturing working engineers, or undergrads in English lecturing published writers.
But for some reason, undergrads in gender/sex studies who have never been outside the ivory tower feel compelled to pontificate to those with (in some cases) decades of real-world experience.
Rather than stamping the "asexual" label on these folks in permanent ink and telling them this symptom (which is frankly kind of horrible) is fundamentally who they are, shouldn't they be encouraged to seek help developing their sexuality?
If not having sex makes you happy, great, but from the sound of this letter is seems like it causes problems for a lot of people.
Does that mean you have to pass a blood test to qualify as a true asexual?
What is the difference between "lack of sexual attraction to others" and "lack of libido"?
Believe it or not, the world wouldn't run if we all had engineering degrees and MBAs.
What does this accomplish? Dan Savage is out here, trying to make ALL people's sex lives better, even if that means admitting that you don't want one and finding a partner and compromise that makes a romantic life possible without one! by alienating DS, you are not coming closer to a more just and tolerant society--you are making it impossible for those of us who are sympathetic but realistic to help you in whatever your struggle is (for rights, for recognition, for the ability to have a romantic, nonsexual partnership).
I do find it ironic that, as others have pointed out, the LW is an undergrad in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. It does suggest that he/she is still somewhat bothered by his/her issues... (sorry, I don't have the courage to re-read the whole thing to figure out his/her gender, if he/she even mentioned it).
She told him upfront that she had virtually no interest in sex but that she would try and accommodate him to the best of her ability - making out, fondling, handjobs - and that if this was not good enough he should not date her. Apparently it was good enough for three years and they parted ways amicably. She told him this all ON THEIR FIRST DATE.
@26 and 28, yes. Every day, bunches of people sit in their doctor's office and say, "I don't know, Doc, I just don't have any sex drive anymore. Can you help?" And the doctor will try to help the patient regain a "normal" sex drive. There are probably a hundred people in this situation for every one person who proclaims themself "Asexual".
Because of the fact that body chemistry and health can affect the libido, at least some of the people who identify as Asexual are that way by choice; they are choosing not to remedy the underlying physical or emotional problem that is causing the absence of a sex drive. "Coming out as asexual", decades into a marriage, is probably indistinguishable from "I'm tired of you and I don't feel that good anyway, so let me alone."
Also, I doubt that being asexual as a teenager is a reliable indicator that you're going to continue that way all your life. While kids who aren't into sex need to feel comfortable and accepted, they shouldn't be told that they belong to some permanent "asexual" population subgroup.
An engineer could go work for the non-profit sector or in research without many problems. A women's studies or comp lit major can't as easily go and design an airplane.
I know. I studied communications with minors in queer theory and computer science. One of those two things served me much better on the job market than the other. "Learning how to think deeply" is great in theory, but maybe not the most productive use of 4 years and $100,000.
Sexual libido= getting aroused
Testosterone has nothing to do with sexual attraction just libido.
Also, while asexuals probably have more time to think about this shit, it's the gender studies major that makes this particular LW a boring old bitty. She gets so caught up in hurt feelings and "I'm less than normal" that she loses sight of the fact that SHE ISN'T NORMAL!
People who can't own their quirks should shut the fuck up and deal. Being an asexual is just as hard as being any other marginalized minority. Own the fuck out of it and damn the people who get in your way. You hold your own confidence.
Why the hell dos everybody fear not being average or normal? Especially to the point that they want to dictate everybody else's speech patterns? Gawd.
Sorry, honey, but you are trying to impose nice neat boundaries on things that are deeply intertwined.
Now see, I was going to say the 10th anniversary and the 20th....ba dum bum.
What i do see from you however is someone who clearly places no value on social sciences and theory. my major is History and although that doesn't translate directly into a specific job but it by no means makes it useless.
Do you really think that increasing prevalence of women studies has nothing to do with furthering the understanding of a topic that is rarely addressed in university or in the media?
But i guess if it doesn't translate into a job right out of university and make you money its not important.
And which of those career choices make use of that women's studies background? None of them. It's quite a damning assessment of the utility of the field if all the career choices you could think of involve leaving the field.
Which isn't to say everyone should be pre-med, pre-law, business, or engineering. Writers, poets, artists, actors, and dancers can all produce wonderful work, and it is the consumption of such work that (frankly) makes life worth living. But I'm having trouble seeing how gender/sexual studies enriches anyone not ensconced within that academic field.
What i do see from you however is someone who clearly places no value on social sciences and theory. my major is History and although that doesn't translate directly into a specific job but it by no means makes it useless.
Do you really think that increasing prevalence of women studies has nothing to do with furthering the understanding of a topic that is rarely addressed in university or in the media?
But i guess if it doesn't translate into a job right out of university and make you money its not important.
Now I am cissexual in addition to being cisgendered?
FFS
I hope you'll have a better experience when you finish university. But I speak from personal experience and the wisdom and suffering of others. I think your perspective may change starkly in the next five to ten years, but i hope it doesn't have to.
(I know how condescending that sounds, but I think you basically accused me of being a shallow materialist, so I'm going to let it slide.)
Then, again, I've read my TA friend's test answers. Her students failed just as hard as you just did.
@56, the increasing prevalence of Women's studies that you claim, if it is true, is most likely due to the increasing prevalence of young adults enrolling in baccalaureate programs who probably should have been persuing different career paths other than academia. College is not for everybody, even though it is pushed on everyone from the middle class an up nowadays. Do we really need more people like LW pontificating and being constitutively offended? What's the purpose?
@63. Sigh people who resort to this comeback on forums drive me nuts! its a fucking comment not a essay. Sadly i don't really care enough about you to put that much effort into the editing of my comments, so i apologize that it didn't meet your standards, next time ill take it to a professional editor.
Are you going to go through every comment on this forum and correct their grammar? Or are you just going after me because you felt miffed and an insult boosts the self esteem that you get from comment posting.
Sigh.
Sniffle.
Sob.
This was back in the angry days of Andrea Dworkin. Perhaps things have changed since then. Any men in your program?
That, my moronic not-friend, is reading comprehension fail.
Having a libido means that you--any of you, all of you--might become aroused and might want to do yourself. Sexual attraction means you'd also want to do OTHERS, because you're attracted to them. If you're asexual, you don't want to do others. It has nothing to do with your level of testosterone, it has to do with sexual attraction to others.
Get it? Probably not. However, it's not exactly rocket science.
I can see the value in history as a preserver of past experiences, that we do not repeat the same mistakes of prior generations. English provides both art and communication; political science aids in government; philosophy yields logic, ethics, and aesthetics. I find the so-called "soft sciences" useful as well: psychology explains cognitive errors not predicted by economics, sociology helps structure organizations, etc. So I see the benefits of undergraduates studying and hopefully contributing to those fields, even if most of those students ultimately leave: all of these fields can enrich the lives of people as a whole.
I have difficulty, however, seeing the value in gender studies as a discipline, since the focus seems to be more on navel-gazing than on producing rigorous academic work. Fields that lend themselves to empiricism conduct peer-reviewed studies, and those fields which are "squishier" at least produce lively debate and a hierarchy of esteemed papers and theories. Gender studies, in my admittedly limited experience, does neither of these: the focus seems to be more on hearing everyone's opinion than on testing or criticizing those opinions. There is no emphasis on producing anything. Which is fine for the people within the field, but worthless for everyone outside of it.
This brings back the cis/trans debate from a couple weeks: A small subset of society can create and make common use of the term "cisgendered," but when other people don't understand it, who's to blame? The normative person for not being more curious about the other, or the other for expecting mass culture to pick up on esoteric in-group language?
I would have understood your point better if you said earlier "arousal or libido isn't always directed outward" or that "asexuals still can have sex drives they just often prefer not to have sex with others." Is that more the point you're making?
Or, in the immortal words of Tweet Oops. Oh my!
I read your post and the ones preceding it and tailored my response accordingly. When you claim that women's studies majors are not rational and that it is poisoning young minds it comes pretty close to calling it useless and essentially delegitimizes it as a major. So instead of responding to your exact words, i responded to the substance.
I guess I don't get it. Are you saying that asexuals can have a desire to jerk off, but not a desire to have sex? Speaking as an "averagely" sexual person, the only times I masturbate are when I'm thinking of having sex with someone else. I can't even conceive of thinking about anything else.
What would an asexual person think of? Couldn't they work that "thing" into sex with another person, like "averagely" sexual people do? I'm honestly both curious and confused.
A postulate: The women's studies majors you remember are the ones who like to rant irksomely. Think of your general pool of acquaintances. Do you know most of their college degree programs? Having attended a school with a lot of women's studies majors, there were ten interested scholars for each pontificating pain in the ass. Selective memory being what it is, consider that.
A second postulate: Women and gender studies is, y'know, a liberal arts thing. The whole point of liberal arts is to study what interests you while preparing to be a well-rounded and sensible person. Not a lot of jobs in the studies of women and gender field, at least not directly, but how many jobs are there for a classical history major? An art history major? Furthermore, women and gender courses tend to be interdepartmental and very customizable, so it's more a specialty within an anthropology/psych/history/sociology degree than anything else, like being a religion major. You can question the liberal arts education model if you like, but women's studies works just fine within that.
In my largely hostile and intolerant environment I have never heard a single offensive comment about people who don't have sex. Yet the comments about homosexuality never seem to stop. And don't tell me it's just because asexual invisibility. Gays are largely invisible here too, and in any case, homophobia existed long before any terms for it were coined. I'm pretty sure that if I came out to my co-workers as asexual, I would have far less trouble with them accepting it than if I came out as bi. Sure, some of them would pity me or try to fix me, but none would be disgusted or scared that I would now molest them or something.
So please, STFU with your righteous, tedious, self-victimizing lectures.
Stay tuned to hear Dan blogging about an obese asexual pitbull.
How is that any different from bullying gay kids at school? In all likelihood, bullied gay kids sometimes behave a little odd - people who feel they don't quite belong often do. I'm sure many of them, after years of getting homophobic crap, are also a bit oversensitive and see discrimination where there is none. Sometimes, they may seem a little self-absorbed (that's what her classmates actually said about (prom) Constance).
I think we've established that that doesn't make it OK to bully them. So why is it OK to bully the letter writer?
But I must be forgetting that, since a few lib arts majors are douches, the entire field of lib arts is useless and it immediately invalidates all their arguments. Good thing the world isn't overrun with douchey MBAs and engineers, right?
Bullying usually means people who are beating up, stealing from, harassing, or otherwise pestering other people for no reason other than their existence. The LW wrote in, and opened herself up to criticism. Being critical of her is not bullying her.
ur profile pic is very pink