"Glad to be asexual"

[Nerthus]

Glad to be asexual

17:07 14 October 2004
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
Sylvia Pagan Westphal

It is an impossibly hot summer evening in St Louis, a city in the American Midwest best known for barbecues and blues music, and I’m driving around the streets of the town’s Central West End wondering if this will be known one day as the place where the revolution began.
In less than an hour I am to meet its leader, a young man whose face I have never seen though we’ve been talking for months. I know I shouldn’t be this eager to greet him in person, to finally see what he looks like, but then again it’s not every day you meet a young healthy man who is 100% uninterested in sex.
In a world where lust can be bought in a pill and skin is the marketing tool du jour, being David Jay cannot be easy. At the age of 22 he has never had sex. He has never experienced sexual attraction towards another person and does not believe it will ever happen.
There are many others who have similar stories to tell. They talk about growing up not being able to understand why everyone else seemed so interested in dating, kissing and touching; in experiencing the ritual of mating.



[...]

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6533

[Gil]

A mate of mine, pretty regular looks (as within the European stereotype) and with a comfortable monetary situation is 29 and still a virgin.
Do I find that bizarre? No, not really. Why? Because he never expressed the same ideals as my other mates, who around the age of 14-16 were jumping with the hormones inside. Some went as far as saying he was gay, which is wrong because he does love a woman but simply cannot cope with the fact that most people have sex before marriage and, in his view, a woman who marries a man and has had sex with other partner is somewhat "spoiled", the same apllying to himself and hence why he is "saving himself up" (his own words).

Personally I think "asexual" isn't natural because every man and women have urges, animalistic desires, etc. What I find "normal" is for one to be able to control them and put logic and common sense before instincts.

[Carnyx]

Well well well... No desire, no physical attraction? It's a sort of sexual autism to me.

I bet it's one more modern mental disease that mostly touches sicko peoples of European stock. Find me non-Europeans asexuals. I'm pretty sure they are fewer. The situation is even more serious than I thought... It's not with this kind of guys that we're going to make something good. Decidely, we seem to be doomed.

Btw, it makes me wondering the male/female ratio of asexuals. If there are more european asexual males than females, there must be a serious deficit of males. So no wonder why our women go chasing males of other races who are not asexuals them.

[Siegmund]

Originally Posted by Duchemin

I bet it's one more modern mental disease that mostly touches sicko peoples of European stock. Find me non-Europeans asexuals. I'm pretty sure they are fewer.

Or it could be that Europeans are more evolved or at least more complicated mentally, which as we probably all know can sometimes impinge upon and supress sexual desire. Also, some do seem to have the ability to pursue intellectual or spiritual interests with an almost sexual abandon at an early age, but then upon discovering a kindred spirit find themselves suddenly incited to "normal" passions and desires.

But I also see your point: at times I too wonder whether Europeans haven't been so utterly beaten down that they sometimes lose the will to bring others into such a depressing world, and thus find themselves depressed sexually as well.

[Aptrgangr]

Originally Posted by Duchemin

Well well well... No desire, no physical attraction? It's a sort of sexual autism to me.

I bet it's one more modern mental disease that mostly touches sicko peoples of European stock. Find me non-Europeans asexuals. I'm pretty sure they are fewer. The situation is even more serious than I thought... It's not with this kind of guys that we're going to make something good. Decidely, we seem to be doomed.

Btw, it makes me wondering the male/female ratio of asexuals. If there are more european asexual males than females, there must be a serious deficit of males. So no wonder why our women go chasing males of other races who are not asexuals them.

There are as many asexual females as males. 1-2% of the population being asexual are not the reason for a chase for men (and women) of other races, being asexual does not necessarily mean being impotent. In fact many asexual women are looking for a man giving fathering to them (and vice versa) and there are many asexuals living in relationships with sexual persons and "doing it" to do their partners a favour.
Where I see the problem are those hetero people living in a relationship and simply do not want to reproduce, one of my best friends broke up relationship with his beautiful girlfriend because she wanted to have a Baby and he simply did not want to. I have 6 close friends (all of them in their late 20s - early 30s , academics and skilled workers) , only one of them has a baby (and no longer lives in Germany).

[Nerthus]

Here is a part of the article which sheds some light on asexuality studies:

The closest we have got to understanding human asexuals comes from studies - mostly surveys - of people who report not having sex. Obviously this category not only includes people who see themselves as asexual but also people who are simply unable to have sex because of old age or ill-health. Nonetheless, these surveys offer some interesting clues. Laumann published one of the best-known sexuality surveys in 1994 (The social organization of sexuality: sexual practices in the United States, by Laumann and others, The University of Chicago Press) based on very detailed responses from almost 3500 Americans from all over the country and all walks of life.
The survey showed that about 13% of respondents had not had sex in a year. Forty per cent of those people considered themselves extremely or very happy in spite of this. The study also revealed, according to Laumann, that about 2% of the entire adult population has never had a sexual experience. But that does not tell us whether these people would ever want to have sex.
It is only recently that sexuality research has begun to focus less on behaviour and more on people’s desires as a better measure of their sexual preference. Bogaert has just published the very first study estimating the prevalence of asexuality in the population using this notion and the results are intriguing (The Journal of Sex Research, vol 41, p 279).

It would probably be interesting to see a general number of European asexuals. I somehow doubt it is higher than the number of gays, lesbians and people who get involved with noneuropeans.
The problem ain't asexuality, the problem is the big number of European people who don't have kids in general - and this regardless of sexual orientation, they may be perfectly heterosexual. Also, not feeling sexual attraction to other people doesn't necessarily mean that the individual in question won't have any descendents. I don't know, maybe some would still feel a sense of duty to pass their surname and blood on and make a bit of 'sacrifice' by sleeping with their partner? Besides, asexuality IMO doesn't mean lack of love and emotional attraction or lack of will to have a family.

[Aptrgangr]

Originally Posted by Aeternitas

It would probably be interesting to see a general number of European asexuals. I somehow doubt it is higher than the number of gays, lesbians and people who get involved with noneuropeans.
The problem ain't asexuality, the problem is the big number of European people who don't have kids in general - and this regardless of sexual orientation, they may be perfectly heterosexual. Also, not feeling sexual attraction to other people doesn't necessarily mean that the individual in question won't have any descendents. I don't know, maybe some would still feel a sense of duty to pass their surname and blood on and make a bit of 'sacrifice' by sleeping with their partner? Besides, asexuality IMO doesn't mean lack of love and emotional attraction or lack of will to have a family.

As I mentioned before, ca. 1-2% of Europe´s population are asexual. There are more inactive sexual people though. http://asexuality.org/de/profile.php
You are right, many asexuals have families - is there a duty to to pass someone´s surname and blood in your opinion?

Originally Posted by Aptrganga

is there a duty to to pass someone´s surname and blood in your opinion?

For the sake of an argument, in my opinion there is as much a duty to continue a lineage as there is to end it. That, on a one per one case.

On a more general note, we do have a duty with a people (your people) who is on the way to become extincted.

[Carnyx]

Originally Posted by Menydh

For the sake of an argument, in my opinion there is as much a duty to continue a lineage as there is to end it. That, on a one per one case.

Heck yes, when I see that only wrong peoples -and here I'm not talking about foreigners- reproduce and good ones don't, I feel sorry for my people and my country.

On a more general note, we do have a duty with a people (your people) who is on the way to become extincted.

Sure it's a duty, but if you've to wonder yourself what you have done for your people today, well... I just wonder if this duty will still be possible to accomplish for some of us, me included. Anyways, I do agree, it's a duty.

Originally Posted by Duchemin

Heck yes, when I see that only wrong peoples -and here I'm not talking about foreigners- reproduce and good ones don't, I feel sorry for my people and my country.

That was exactly what I had in mind.

Further to this point, imagine all those race conscious white trash Americans procreating like rabbits (or like rats if you prefer) because --in their flawed brains-- they somehow believe that they are superior "by default" even when they are exactly the opposite, while people who range from normal up are having typically from two to none... The March of the Trash..

Note: as I'm typing I have next to me one such American, with his bare feet and drunk, insisting in asking me things after I clearly told him "no hablo inglés" and that I don't understand his atempts to babble in Spanish.. argh!

Sure it's a duty, but if you've to wonder yourself what you have done for your people today, well... I just wonder if this duty will still be possible to accomplish for some of us, me included. Anyways, I do agree, it's a duty.

I think about it every single day.

[Aptrgangr]

I find this view very technocratic, in my opinion people who want to have children should have some. I hardly can imagine someone gives fathering because he thinks it is a duty, I think people should do it because they volunteerly want to and have joy with their children. I asked my (leftist-liberal) mother why she got me, she answered she wanted to have me. (she gave up her academic career for her 4 children)
I also have noticed: the more educated the less is the number of children the couple has, an exception are conservative couples, and these are more and more rare around here in Germany...
I do not think (poor) white Americans are just trash, better they procreate with white partners than with colored, here in my town more and more mixed-race children are born, it has become a sarcastic little hobby for me in recent times - the "bastard check" , I look into the baby carriages of German women and check it is a bastard or not after I have bet with myself it is one or not...in recent times negroes have become much more popular than turks/arabs...
Even my mother once said to me I was preventing a girl from having a nice man and preventing her from having grand-children, none of her four aduld children has children, I only can speak for myself: I do not expect myself having children, I cannot predict what will happen but chances are low.