Understanding Asexuality

Most, if not all, sexual people, then, may have some understanding of what it would be like to be asexual all the time. They might even wonder whether asexual people have a special knowledge, seeing sex for what it truly is: a rather strange preoccupation partly induced by a brain poison (i.e., hormones). Prepubescent children (i.e., before their hormonal surge) often have this view of sex, wondering why in heaven’s name would someone want to do that, as if it were as sensible and pleasurable as repeatedly sticking one’s finger in another’s ear. Perhaps prepubescence can be construed as a form of asexuality or, more accurately, as a related phenomenon: presexuality.

On the AVEN website, comments at times appear about the strange, nonsensical activities of sexual people. I hear that AVEN webmasters sometimes have to rein in some of the more extreme and disparaging comments on these strange activities of sexual people. It reminds me of the disparaging rant that some gay people hurl at heterosexuals: Breeders! I suppose this comment is meant to suggest that the heterosexual habit of overpopulating a fragile planet with their offspring is, well, a bit self-centered and gauche. Both views have merit perhaps, and maybe there are webmasters reining in breeder rants on gay/lesbian sites as well.

The view that sex is odd is sometimes afforded to people when exposed to sexual activities that they don’t find stimulating. Heterosexual men, for example, may find gay porn to be curious, even amusing, rather than titillating or deeply arousing. When they watch it, they may feel like an observer watching someone sticking a probe into a friend’s ear, and although it is clear that both the prober and the one being probed find (or feign) this activity deeply interesting and satisfying (e.g., by their vocalizations or other telltale signs), the heterosexual viewer may feel that there is no apparent reason for this activity. Thus, they are left with a largely curious, even amused reaction. There is a scene in the movie The Kids Are Alright in which a lesbian couple is turned on by gay (male) porn and incorporates it into their lovemaking (Gilbert et al., 2010). The movie shows snippets of a gay porn movie, but the sex scenes are played up in such a way as to seem amusing. I think the filmmakers were playfully suggesting, perhaps in line with the themes of the movie, that any sex is a bit odd (regardless of the players) and can be viewed with curious amusement when seen from the outsider’s perspective. It just so happens that the viewers (in the audience) are likely predominantly heterosexual, as they are the majority in society, but it could be the other way around: gay people viewing heterosexual porn—or, more to the point, asexual people viewing any porn (but see chapter 10).

Even while in the throes of sexual acts themselves, sexual people may have some understanding of the feverish madness of sex. Thus, if a heterosexual woman has an exciting new sexual partner and he is nearly all-consuming for her, she may still have, in moments of reflection, some knowledge of how her recent life has turned upside down because of him. An even more extreme example is a married heterosexual man who spends an inordinate amount of time and money on prostitutes. Yet on some level he “knows” that his behavior is irrational. He may even know that he is on the verge of ruining his life, as his job and family life are at stake. Some clinicians, of course, call this kind of sexual behavior an addiction.

Sometimes the madness of sex has little to do with actual behaviors, and more to do with a fantasy that never gets lived out because the object of desire is unattainable. Thus a classmate or colleague at work becomes an obsession; a carefully managed fantasy, perhaps, but at weaker moments the fantasy may leak into, and even disrupt, an otherwise tranquil home life.