/u/Carradee on Question about sex-loving aces.

The definition for asexuality actually used to be "no sexual attraction and no desire for sexual activity". Why did that change?

To start, you're inaccurate about the old definition. It can refer to a lack of sexual attraction or a lack of desire for sexual activity, not "and". It's still used that way in media and in some dictionaries, including standard ones.

One of the problems with that definition is that those two things (attraction and desire) exist independently. Ex. A person can be attracted to the hot new employee at their workplace but have no desire to actually follow through and have sex with them; a person can desire to have sex with their partner even if they don't particularly like the paunch belly.

Another problem is the definition's inconsistency with other orientation terms. A homosexual person in a heterosexual marriage (with biological children!) is not straight or bi, but consistency with the "action" part of asexuality's definition would change their own orientation.

Now, let's look at this from the other side; asexual persons who can seem straight. I'll illustrate this with how it works for me, since, I personally identify as aromantic asexual, subtype cupioromantic cupiosexual—but I'm basically sex-indifferent; I'm perfectly willing to have romantic and sexual relationships, just without some active desire for them.

But if I had a partner who wanted romance and sex with the compatibility I would like in a partner? Cool beans! I obvs enjoy your company enough to be wiling to partner with the person, and they enjoy romance and sex stuff, and I can enjoy feeding them something they enjoy. And the lack of active desire for this means I'm not going to compromise on anything that matters to me for it; if I can't get what I want, I'd rather just not.

I probably could still call myself straight if I wanted, but the fact is…I perceive things differently from allo persons. I had multiple ace-aware friends know I was asexual before I did. I just last week had someone notice I was asexual from an observation I made. The labels can help communication, like one allosexual friend who alerts me when I've missed innuendo via a pitch cue.

But also, desire and attraction do exist independently. So does willingness—and physiological desire and psychological desire are themselves independent. There are even kinks involving the independence of these features.

And, if you think through how the other orientations work, all the others presuppose attraction, not anything else. Like, a person who experiences same-sex attraction but due to personal religious convictions marries heterosexually is still considered homosexual, whether or not they've had intercourse with their spouse or had biological children.

So ultimately, it's a consistency issue that applies across all orientations.

November 24, 2021 at 12:47AM