A Life Without Sex: The Third Phase of the Asexuality Movement

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Asexual is not a mental illness, and the very fact that you would go there is emblematic of the way asexuals are excluded, rendered invisible, and otherwise marginalized by sexuals.

No, I didn't exclude them.  Sick people are very much 'with us', and can be quite visible as long as they're ambulatory or functional - in point of fact when they go on killing sprees they become quite the center of attention. 

True, they're 'on the margin', but after all, isn't it true that the vast majority of people have a working gonad and a brain connected to it?

Why would that entail sickness on the part of the minority? It's an entirely benign sickness at worse, and hence not in the conventional sense a sickness at all.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Asexual is not a mental illness, and the very fact that you would go there is emblematic of the way asexuals are excluded, rendered invisible, and otherwise marginalized by sexuals.

No, I didn't exclude them.  Sick people are very much 'with us', and can be quite visible as long as they're ambulatory or functional - in point of fact when they go on killing sprees they become quite the center of attention. 

True, they're 'on the margin', but after all, isn't it true that the vast majority of people have a working gonad and a brain connected to it?

Why would that entail sickness on the part of the minority? It's an entirely benign sickness at worse, and hence not in the conventional sense a sickness at all.

Benign? A life without sexual compulsions is missing a very necessary ingredient that drives intimate relationships.

Nope.

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Again, from experience, nope.

And, as for me--

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[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

@Nathan - Could you explain why so that I can further understand asexuality?

Why what? I developed 'normally' (read: normatively) until I was about fifteen, at which point some switch or something got thrown and I lost progressively the desire to actually have sex with anybody and then most sexual attraction (it's only active sexual desire that I completely lack, my level of sexual attraction is just very low). There really isn't a 'why' for it, although I am in some ways happy about it since religious ecstasies and creative ability kind of fill in for most of that instinctual field, and 'sitting outside my friends' and acquaintances' love/sex tesseract watching and eating popcorn' for most of the social aspects*.


*this actually isn't due to the asexuality, it's due to celibacy, which is a separate issue for me with much more to do with a specific unrelated event in my life where I lost somebody I really loved.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Do you consider homosexuals to be mentally ill as well?  Both are sexual minorities who deviate from the "mainstream".  What's the difference?

No buddy, a hole is a hole.  Its even just the right size and shape!

In that case what, precisely, is 'wrong' with a specific deviation involving not caring about holes? Put another way, what makes interest in holes of such value to you?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Do you consider homosexuals to be mentally ill as well?  Both are sexual minorities who deviate from the "mainstream".  What's the difference?

No buddy, a hole is a hole.  Its even just the right size and shape!

In that case what, precisely, is 'wrong' with a specific deviation involving not caring about holes? Put another way, what makes interest in holes of such value to you?

To turn the nail on its head, do you also approve of anorexia?  Tis the same sort of disorder, pal.

How? You need to eat for your body to continue functioning.

They may have hormone deficiencies, which is quite treatable these days (hormones are your friends!). If they have a sex drive, but for philosophical reasons chose to remain celibate, that is another matter.

I don't really have the time to get into the difference here (sorry Torie, I would otherwise!--but I'm traveling today), but I assure you that in the case of 'asexuality-as-orientation' as is being discussed it's usually not a question of hormones, at least, no more so than any other orientation.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

not all asexuals are celibate. Some do engage in sex for social reasons.

How do they get *cough* erect in the case of men or naturally lubricated in the case of women *cough* if there is no sexual desire?

Somebody had to ask...

It's possible to become erect with very limited desire and it's actually possible for asexual people to have fetishes, as paradoxical as that may sound. It just feels somewhat, uh, off, at least in my case.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

To turn the nail on its head, do you also approve of anorexia?  Tis the same sort of disorder, pal.

How? You need to eat for your body to continue functioning.
r matter.

I don't think it is helpful to define mental illness as only involving that which causes the body to cease functioning.  You might stand all day in the highway median screaming at traffic with magic marker eyebrows and a toilet seat round your neck and after all this would not cause the body to cease functioning.

You explicitly compared it to anorexia, which doesn't work at all. I'm baffled as to how a sexual orientation can be a mental illness, unless you're one of those assholes.