November 1, 2010 • 20 mins
Although asexuality in other organisms is well-understood, human asexuality is more of a mystery to us. Is asexuality a disorder, or an orientation? Molly and Cristen examine what studies and anecdotal evidence reveal about human asexuality.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?
From House top Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly Molly on Stuff
(00:21):
Mom Never Told You. We have talked a lot about
as e X sex sex, that's what I can sell. Yes, Um,
we've talked about different sexual orientations, different facets of the
mechanics of sex, and today we're gonna kind of talk
about the other side of the coin, lack of sex, well,
(00:45):
not just lack of sex, lack of a sexual attraction
to anyone. A sexuality, Yes, because a lot of times,
well at least for me, the first time I heard
about a sexuality was in reference to a sexual reproduction
in the animal kingdom, to good old biology, old biology.
But human a sexuality is a little bit different. It is.
(01:08):
And you know, we've talked about celibacy and people who
abstained from a sexual intercourse for one reason or the other.
This is different because it's not, you know, as as
a sexualist, but it's not a choice. It's not like
it's it's you know, how someone would say it's not
like I decided to be straight or gay. It's just
how I was, and that's you know, they're saying, that's
how I am. I have no desire to have sex
(01:29):
with men, women, anyone. So from around two thousand three
to two thousand six, there was a lot of media
attention given to a sexuality. There was this idea that
there was going to be some kind of a sexual
revolution where a lot of people who identified as a
sexual would come out of the closet, if you will,
(01:49):
and a lot of it was due to two main things.
There was a study that came out from a researcher
last named Bogart who he examined a large scale survey
of people in the UK and concluded that around one
percent of the population is a sexual. Right there was
(02:11):
you know, they've done the survey for some other reason,
and they asked all these questions like I am attracted
to women, I am attracted to men, I am attracted
to no one, And he was surprised that no one
had picked up on how many people said that they
had never felt an attraction to anyone. And so from
that he started extra playing this other other stuff and said,
you know what, we've got this underground community of people
(02:33):
who don't want to have sex, and he thought he
put he put the number one percent of the population.
And right around that time, this corone quote a sexual
movement got a leader in the form of David J,
who was the head of a website called a Sexuality
Visibility and Education Network or a v N. And this
(02:56):
was he was pretty much a spokesperson for a sexuality
And all of these media trend stories, I mean I
really could not find one that didn't mention David J.
And he was all about coming out and talking about um,
a sexuality and being quote unquote a sexy and where
he there's a photo of him with a T shirt
on UM that says, this is what an a sexual
(03:16):
looks like, kind of a play on this is what
a feminist looks like. And in one main story that
we found from the New Scientists, they point out that
he has quote Greek god lips um. Obviously, you know
he could go out if you wanted to and perhaps, um,
I find a partner, find a partner exactly, But David
(03:37):
J says, no, I'm a sexual. I have no sexual
attraction towards anyone. So that that just kicked off all
of these shrewd stories about a sexuality and kind of
determining what it is, because aside from a lack of
sexual attraction for someone else, there isn't a really hard
and fast definition, right, So I mean, as we kind
(03:57):
of explore this more, I think there'll be a lot
of it. Does I think raise more questions than answers sometimes,
but uh, we're gonna try and dive in and see
what we can determine about a sexuality because, like Kristen said,
you know, the first I think the first question this
reporter for New Scientists had was are these just people
who have had bad luck and love? Are they going
to withdraw from the world and just say I'm a sexual,
(04:20):
just leave me alone. It's easier to be a sexual
than to be out there pursuing love. And that's not
what these people are. They a legitimate, legitimate lack of
desire to have sex with another person. And that's going
to raise up this chorus of people from the medical
community who's like, well, that's a that's a medical problem.
You know, if you don't have a sexual desire, it
(04:42):
starts to get lumped in with sexual desire disorders. And
these people are saying, no, it's not not a disorder,
it's it's just who I am. And I think to
keep things off, we should bring up the definition of
a sexuality from the a Sexual Visibility and Education Network
to give you an idea of what a sexuality is
from the community's perspective. And they say, this is a
(05:04):
quote from their website that um and a sexual is
someone who does not experience sexual attraction. Like we've said,
unlike celibacy, which people choose, a sexuality is an intrinsic
part of who we are. It doesn't make our lives
any worse ort any better. We just faced a different
set of challenges than most sexual people. And when it
comes to scientific research on a sexuality, it is a
(05:27):
very very small pool to pull from because aside from
that Bogart survey that we mentioned, uh, there is another
paper that came out. It was published in two thousand
six from Nicole Prowse entitled A Sexuality Classification and Characterization,
where she actually goes out whereas Bogart took a just
(05:47):
a survey of from the standard population and then kind
of extrapolate data from it, Prowesse actually went out in
search of people who identified as a sexual to UM
pinned down their miographic. But you know, both of those
studies are self reporting. It's about, you know, their own
perspective on being a sexual, and there's a lack of
(06:08):
scientific studies on you know, people who identify as a sexual.
You know, one thing that they think they might do
in the future is take hormone counts to see if
something is off. But these people who are a sexual
are saying, no, we don't need to do things like that.
Nothing is off. This is who we are. We want
to recognize as a sexual orientation that's as you know,
(06:29):
intrinsic in our culture as heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality. So that's
sort of you know, these two starlingforces. We've got the
people who are trying to figure out, you know, quote
unquote what's wrong with these people, and the other side saying,
there's nothing wrong with us. This is just just who we are.
Um you know, we're here, live with it now. From
(06:49):
a clinical perspective, there is something in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders termed the hyperactive sexual desire disorder,
and it's basically when you have no sex drive and
some people might mistake that clinical disorder for a sexuality,
but A sexuals would say, no, we know, we don't
(07:11):
feel like there's anything actually wrong with us. It's not
causing us any kind of the stress. It's simply a
part of our life. And so the distinction between the
two if you're if you're out there trying to figure
out if you just are a sexual or have a
lack of sexual desire, it's it becomes how it affects
your life. If you're married and you know you and
your husband are always fighting because you don't want to
(07:33):
have sex, that might be a problem of sexual desire,
as if and if you never ever wanted to have sex,
that's more a sexuality. Am I getting that right? Christen?
I think you're getting it right. And uh. One big
finding from the Nicole Prows two thousand six study was
that a lot of the A sexuals that she talked
to had had some kind of sexual experience, whether it
(07:54):
was just kissing someone or actually having intercourse or masturbating,
and the experience was and you know, it didn't traumatize them.
That's the other question I think a lot of people ask,
is you know, is there some sort of childhood trauma
that made them, you know, just turn off of people
and turn off of sex. And you know they say that,
you know, they'll experience it, and it's just it's nothing.
(08:14):
It's not positive, it's not negative. It's just an interesting
to them. And uh and so that's where things start
to get I don't know, I think just hard for
people to figure out. Because another thing that we did
find out that that comes up in all these trend
pieces that as Kristen mentioned, you know, we're just concentrated
in a period of three years, is that they do
(08:34):
sometimes feel the elements of physical desire. The men get erections,
they may masturbate, but they say it's just not linked
to sexual attraction to another person, right. And we even
found a story about a couple um published in The
Guardian who got married. It was an a sexual guy
as a sexual girl. They had an amazing deep friendship
(08:57):
and I think they kiss every now and then and
kind of cuddle a little bit, but other than that,
they there's no no hanky panky whatsoever. That they've been
married for a little while now and they're both still virgins,
and that's why I think it can get a little tricky.
Is that people in this community have said within a
sexuality there can be romantic drives that are totally separate
from sexual drives. And I think that in our culture
(09:20):
we do tend to link the two. When we feel
romantic towards a person, we want to have sex with them.
But these people are saying, I don't want to have
sex ever, But if I am attracted to people, I'm
more or less attracted to men, are more or less
attracted to women, And they say these are their romantic drives,
not their sexual drives. And they want to form these
long monogamous bonds with one person, but just that bond
(09:44):
will never include sex. And because of the online network
the David Jay's put together, as Kristin mentioned, these people
can find each other a little bit more and uh,
and you know that's luckily a kind of relationship. You
don't have to have that conversation like, by the way,
we're not having sex whatever. But there are some people
(10:04):
who you know are out there in the world and
you know that date rolls around where you've got to
have that talk. And uh, that's when they got to
bring up to a sexuality. So, speaking of the a
sexual community, there was a notable difference between the findings
from the initial bog Art study that fail or at
least concluded that one person of the population is a sexual,
(10:27):
and then the Prows survey that really analyzed who these
a sexuals are in terms of male, female age, all
of that. And in the bog Art survey, uh, he
the demographic that he paints for a sexuals is not
the most flattering. Basically, he said, the variables predicting a
(10:51):
sexual classification include mostly female, and they're older, generally single,
tend to be quite really legious. They are short and
poorly educated and poor in general, kind of sickly and
had a late first period. And see, I read that
(11:11):
description after reading all of these trend pieces that we
pulled up, and all the trend pieces always talk about
the attractive male, the attractive male face of the a
sexual community. So I think that, I mean, I think
that if you read the bog Art description of the
typical a sexual, I don't know if you'd want to
come out as an a sexual. I don't want to
identify as a sickly female. I'm just saying. But in
(11:36):
the Proud survey, she found when actually going into these
communities and again, like you said, Molly, this is these
are people self identifying as a sexual. But still she
didn't find any sort of significant gender difference. She it
was pretty even split between males and females who identified
as a sexual, and her findings contrasted the negative stereotype
(11:59):
that I think the Bogue survey might have might have
sparked in the beginning of this trend phase around a sexuality,
because something that gets repeated in these in these pieces
is the comparison between the a sexual revolution and the
gay movement, and think of how people were, I mean,
(12:19):
people are afraid sometimes to be that stereotypical gay guy,
that stereotypical lesbian, and they say that they're sort of
that same fear within this a sexual community, and that
you know, you know, a sickly female is not not
the post or child of a movement, I don't think.
So it's about how maybe that might have been a
step backward, and now these people are coming out and saying, no,
(12:41):
it's not that we're sickly undesirable, it's just something that
we have never had an interest in, right, And they
report plenty of advantages of being a sexual, such as
there are four main benefits that pross outlines, including avoiding
common problems of intimate relationships. Yeah, I mean having a
(13:01):
significant other takes a lot of time and effort, decreased
risk of physical health or unwanted pregnancy. Yeah, if you're
not having sex, you're not gonna probably catch STDs. Um,
you have less social pressure to find suitable partners. And
bonus free time. Hello, I mean nothing. Nothing spells time
(13:23):
suck like a new relationship. But these people aren't opposed
to relationships, Kristen, right, They still have They foster friendships,
and they even foster what they call hetero romantic relationships
in which it's like the married couple where they have
a deep bond but it just isn't physical. And you know,
the joke that the couple in the Guardian made is
(13:45):
that after you know, five or ten years, they're going
to look like every other married couple, with that stereotype
being that married people stop having sex. And so that's
I think where they can start to paint a picture
of you know, there's this sexuality spectrum. There are people
who want to have it a lot, and they're people
who just want to have it a little and the
spectrum goes leave them further to those who don't want
to have sex at all. But that, you know, is
(14:07):
a struggle for some researchers and even just other people
in our society to accept because in that proud study um,
when they were given the reasons why a sexuality had
its benefits, they asked people who were sexual to say
what they thought the biggest detriment of it was, and
those people said that these people are missing out on
a really nice, beautiful, you know, experience, And that was
(14:30):
the biggest thing that people who had sex couldn't figure
out about the people who didn't have sex, is why
they'd want to cut themselves off from, you know, something
that's pleasurable and can result in children and you know,
can bring you closer to a mate. And uh, that's
not a concern at all for the a sexuals who
feel like they're not missing out on anything, right, They're
more concerned that the greatest downfall they reported was trying
(14:54):
to figure out why they are the way they are
because there hasn't been much research on it. And I
think there are some inherent problems with such a fluid
definition of sexuality, and I think that's one reason why
there's been kind of a conflict between the queer community
and the a sexual community because you know, they they're
such a broad a broad definition that it might kind
(15:17):
of money the waters if you're not you know, they're
not gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender. They are sort of maybe
a little bit of all of it minus intercourse. But
after reading all of these media trend pieces about this
supposed a sexual revolution and so much publicity towards David
(15:38):
j who's the head of the a Sexual Visibility and
Education Network, it was like, we wanted, you know, all
of these a sexuals to quote unquote come out of
the closet. But a few years down the road, it
seems like maybe I'm just not hip to it, but
it seems like it never happened well, and I think
that you even have to ask yourself what you know
that a sexual revolution would look like. A y reporter
(16:01):
decided to use that term quite so often to get
a stuck in my head. But um, you know, it's
it's a difficult thing, I think, to come out as
in a sexual If all these people are saying, hey,
it doesn't exist, and be if it does exist, then
there's just something wrong. With you. So I don't know that,
you know, a few trend pieces in the early two
thousands were enough to spark that. Um, I don't think
(16:24):
that David Jay's website has reported any big boom of
visitors and people trying to find people who are like them.
So I don't know if it's something that people think
will pass that maybe they're a late bloomer and it's
something you come to terms with over time, or if
it's just the culture we live in doesn't provide that
sort of acceptance of such a different lifestyle. I mean,
(16:45):
even researchers are saying, we need to do more work
on this before we know if this is a thing.
You really just might have an endocrine problem, you might
have some trauma you don't know about. You can be
taught to be sexual. These people are saying, I don't
want to be taught to be sexual, and you've got say,
at what point do you know is it anyone else's
job to say, well, I'm going to teach you? Right?
(17:05):
And it also brings up something that's come up a
lot um in the podcast when we're talking about things
like you know, female sex drive and libido and all
of that is the question of who says what a
normal sex drive is? You know, are we unfairly you
know kind of um uh? Are we unfairly criticizing these
(17:26):
people and and assigning a disorder to them when they
feel like there is no disorder there find David J
has absolutely no problem with being completely a sexual um
and like it says on his website, it doesn't make
his life any better or any worse. So we'd like
to hear from you at this point because you know,
the research is still you know, still waiting to hear
(17:47):
back from the researchers on on what's going on. And
it seems like the revolution hasn't happened. I don't know,
so let's hear from you guys out there. Um, what
what do you think? Do you think that a sexuality
should be considered a sexual is a discreet sexual orientation?
(18:08):
Do you think that it's bogus? Let us know, mom
stuff at how stuff works dot com and let's read
a couple of emails. I have one here from Kendra
and this is about the doll podcast we did Kristen,
and she writes, I remember the cabbage patch craze in
the early eighties as I was a poor kid and
grew up with many other poor kids used to make
(18:30):
up stories about how they were demonic creatures and cute wrapping.
I think we watched too many horror movies as kids,
and combine that with the expensive toy that we knew
we wouldn't be getting, and we were able to scare
ourselves and others, which I think was a way to
cope with knocking the cool hot toy. However, unbeknownst to me,
my mom, who worked at Kymar at the time, was
able to stash away a couple of Cabbage Patch kids
from my sister and I, needless to say, Christmas morning,
(18:51):
my fourth grade self was terrified that Santa left one
of these dolls under my tree. The poor doll was buried,
never to be seen again in the back, Pa says,
is in my closet until my senior year of high
school when I moved out. I think my mom dusted
her off and kept her for a long while, but
that little doll creeped me out, and honestly, I have
a fear of dolls to this day. Well, I've got
one here from Ray and this is in response to
(19:13):
our podcast on chivalry. She writes I'm a single, independent
woman and I own a house, travel around the world.
Whenever I get the time off work, I vote, and
I feel I'm paid for my work and I'm appreciated,
feeling a good example of a woman who embraces much
of what the feminists fought for. Chivalrous acts such as
holding the door open, offering a coat when we were chilled,
offering a seat on a bus, etcetera, should be seen
(19:35):
as kind, considerate, and courteous gestures. If I were on
a date with a man who behaves as such, I
would definitely have a more favorable opinion of him, especially
if I feel these acts are genuine. This would bode
very well for the next date. Good manners are one
of the best ways to make a good impression. I've
seen firsthand cases where good manners and small acts of
(19:55):
courtesy or sadly missing on a date or even in
daily life. Who wants to live in this kind of
environment or be around people like this? I would hate
to live in a world or these male acts of
kindness we're seen as insulting in where these men were
chided for performing in such as So thank you, Ray,
and as always, you can email me and Molly at
mom stuff at how stuff works dot com, or you
(20:18):
can hit us up on our Facebook page. We'd love
to see you over there, where you can follow us
on Twitter, and of course you can check out our
blog during the week. It's stuff I've Never told you
and you can find it at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
(20:40):
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two
thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?
From House top Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly Molly on Stuff
(00:21):
Mom Never Told You. We have talked a lot about
as e X sex sex, that's what I can sell. Yes, Um,
we've talked about different sexual orientations, different facets of the
mechanics of sex, and today we're gonna kind of talk
about the other side of the coin, lack of sex, well,
(00:45):
not just lack of sex, lack of a sexual attraction
to anyone. A sexuality, Yes, because a lot of times,
well at least for me, the first time I heard
about a sexuality was in reference to a sexual reproduction
in the animal kingdom, to good old biology, old biology.
But human a sexuality is a little bit different. It is.
(01:08):
And you know, we've talked about celibacy and people who
abstained from a sexual intercourse for one reason or the other.
This is different because it's not, you know, as as
a sexualist, but it's not a choice. It's not like
it's it's you know, how someone would say it's not
like I decided to be straight or gay. It's just
how I was, and that's you know, they're saying, that's
how I am. I have no desire to have sex
(01:29):
with men, women, anyone. So from around two thousand three
to two thousand six, there was a lot of media
attention given to a sexuality. There was this idea that
there was going to be some kind of a sexual
revolution where a lot of people who identified as a
sexual would come out of the closet, if you will,
(01:49):
and a lot of it was due to two main things.
There was a study that came out from a researcher
last named Bogart who he examined a large scale survey
of people in the UK and concluded that around one
percent of the population is a sexual. Right there was
(02:11):
you know, they've done the survey for some other reason,
and they asked all these questions like I am attracted
to women, I am attracted to men, I am attracted
to no one, And he was surprised that no one
had picked up on how many people said that they
had never felt an attraction to anyone. And so from
that he started extra playing this other other stuff and said,
you know what, we've got this underground community of people
(02:33):
who don't want to have sex, and he thought he
put he put the number one percent of the population.
And right around that time, this corone quote a sexual
movement got a leader in the form of David J,
who was the head of a website called a Sexuality
Visibility and Education Network or a v N. And this
(02:56):
was he was pretty much a spokesperson for a sexuality
And all of these media trend stories, I mean I
really could not find one that didn't mention David J.
And he was all about coming out and talking about um,
a sexuality and being quote unquote a sexy and where
he there's a photo of him with a T shirt
on UM that says, this is what an a sexual
(03:16):
looks like, kind of a play on this is what
a feminist looks like. And in one main story that
we found from the New Scientists, they point out that
he has quote Greek god lips um. Obviously, you know
he could go out if you wanted to and perhaps, um,
I find a partner, find a partner exactly, But David
(03:37):
J says, no, I'm a sexual. I have no sexual
attraction towards anyone. So that that just kicked off all
of these shrewd stories about a sexuality and kind of
determining what it is, because aside from a lack of
sexual attraction for someone else, there isn't a really hard
and fast definition, right, So I mean, as we kind
(03:57):
of explore this more, I think there'll be a lot
of it. Does I think raise more questions than answers sometimes,
but uh, we're gonna try and dive in and see
what we can determine about a sexuality because, like Kristen said,
you know, the first I think the first question this
reporter for New Scientists had was are these just people
who have had bad luck and love? Are they going
to withdraw from the world and just say I'm a sexual,
(04:20):
just leave me alone. It's easier to be a sexual
than to be out there pursuing love. And that's not
what these people are. They a legitimate, legitimate lack of
desire to have sex with another person. And that's going
to raise up this chorus of people from the medical
community who's like, well, that's a that's a medical problem.
You know, if you don't have a sexual desire, it
(04:42):
starts to get lumped in with sexual desire disorders. And
these people are saying, no, it's not not a disorder,
it's it's just who I am. And I think to
keep things off, we should bring up the definition of
a sexuality from the a Sexual Visibility and Education Network
to give you an idea of what a sexuality is
from the community's perspective. And they say, this is a
(05:04):
quote from their website that um and a sexual is
someone who does not experience sexual attraction. Like we've said,
unlike celibacy, which people choose, a sexuality is an intrinsic
part of who we are. It doesn't make our lives
any worse ort any better. We just faced a different
set of challenges than most sexual people. And when it
comes to scientific research on a sexuality, it is a
(05:27):
very very small pool to pull from because aside from
that Bogart survey that we mentioned, uh, there is another
paper that came out. It was published in two thousand
six from Nicole Prowse entitled A Sexuality Classification and Characterization,
where she actually goes out whereas Bogart took a just
(05:47):
a survey of from the standard population and then kind
of extrapolate data from it, Prowesse actually went out in
search of people who identified as a sexual to UM
pinned down their miographic. But you know, both of those
studies are self reporting. It's about, you know, their own
perspective on being a sexual, and there's a lack of
(06:08):
scientific studies on you know, people who identify as a sexual.
You know, one thing that they think they might do
in the future is take hormone counts to see if
something is off. But these people who are a sexual
are saying, no, we don't need to do things like that.
Nothing is off. This is who we are. We want
to recognize as a sexual orientation that's as you know,
(06:29):
intrinsic in our culture as heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality. So that's
sort of you know, these two starlingforces. We've got the
people who are trying to figure out, you know, quote
unquote what's wrong with these people, and the other side saying,
there's nothing wrong with us. This is just just who we are.
Um you know, we're here, live with it now. From
(06:49):
a clinical perspective, there is something in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders termed the hyperactive sexual desire disorder,
and it's basically when you have no sex drive and
some people might mistake that clinical disorder for a sexuality,
but A sexuals would say, no, we know, we don't
(07:11):
feel like there's anything actually wrong with us. It's not
causing us any kind of the stress. It's simply a
part of our life. And so the distinction between the
two if you're if you're out there trying to figure
out if you just are a sexual or have a
lack of sexual desire, it's it becomes how it affects
your life. If you're married and you know you and
your husband are always fighting because you don't want to
(07:33):
have sex, that might be a problem of sexual desire,
as if and if you never ever wanted to have sex,
that's more a sexuality. Am I getting that right? Christen?
I think you're getting it right. And uh. One big
finding from the Nicole Prows two thousand six study was
that a lot of the A sexuals that she talked
to had had some kind of sexual experience, whether it
(07:54):
was just kissing someone or actually having intercourse or masturbating,
and the experience was and you know, it didn't traumatize them.
That's the other question I think a lot of people ask,
is you know, is there some sort of childhood trauma
that made them, you know, just turn off of people
and turn off of sex. And you know they say that,
you know, they'll experience it, and it's just it's nothing.
(08:14):
It's not positive, it's not negative. It's just an interesting
to them. And uh and so that's where things start
to get I don't know, I think just hard for
people to figure out. Because another thing that we did
find out that that comes up in all these trend
pieces that as Kristen mentioned, you know, we're just concentrated
in a period of three years, is that they do
(08:34):
sometimes feel the elements of physical desire. The men get erections,
they may masturbate, but they say it's just not linked
to sexual attraction to another person, right. And we even
found a story about a couple um published in The
Guardian who got married. It was an a sexual guy
as a sexual girl. They had an amazing deep friendship
(08:57):
and I think they kiss every now and then and
kind of cuddle a little bit, but other than that,
they there's no no hanky panky whatsoever. That they've been
married for a little while now and they're both still virgins,
and that's why I think it can get a little tricky.
Is that people in this community have said within a
sexuality there can be romantic drives that are totally separate
from sexual drives. And I think that in our culture
(09:20):
we do tend to link the two. When we feel
romantic towards a person, we want to have sex with them.
But these people are saying, I don't want to have
sex ever, But if I am attracted to people, I'm
more or less attracted to men, are more or less
attracted to women, And they say these are their romantic drives,
not their sexual drives. And they want to form these
long monogamous bonds with one person, but just that bond
(09:44):
will never include sex. And because of the online network
the David Jay's put together, as Kristin mentioned, these people
can find each other a little bit more and uh,
and you know that's luckily a kind of relationship. You
don't have to have that conversation like, by the way,
we're not having sex whatever. But there are some people
(10:04):
who you know are out there in the world and
you know that date rolls around where you've got to
have that talk. And uh, that's when they got to
bring up to a sexuality. So, speaking of the a
sexual community, there was a notable difference between the findings
from the initial bog Art study that fail or at
least concluded that one person of the population is a sexual,
(10:27):
and then the Prows survey that really analyzed who these
a sexuals are in terms of male, female age, all
of that. And in the bog Art survey, uh, he
the demographic that he paints for a sexuals is not
the most flattering. Basically, he said, the variables predicting a
(10:51):
sexual classification include mostly female, and they're older, generally single,
tend to be quite really legious. They are short and
poorly educated and poor in general, kind of sickly and
had a late first period. And see, I read that
(11:11):
description after reading all of these trend pieces that we
pulled up, and all the trend pieces always talk about
the attractive male, the attractive male face of the a
sexual community. So I think that, I mean, I think
that if you read the bog Art description of the
typical a sexual, I don't know if you'd want to
come out as an a sexual. I don't want to
identify as a sickly female. I'm just saying. But in
(11:36):
the Proud survey, she found when actually going into these
communities and again, like you said, Molly, this is these
are people self identifying as a sexual. But still she
didn't find any sort of significant gender difference. She it
was pretty even split between males and females who identified
as a sexual, and her findings contrasted the negative stereotype
(11:59):
that I think the Bogue survey might have might have
sparked in the beginning of this trend phase around a sexuality,
because something that gets repeated in these in these pieces
is the comparison between the a sexual revolution and the
gay movement, and think of how people were, I mean,
(12:19):
people are afraid sometimes to be that stereotypical gay guy,
that stereotypical lesbian, and they say that they're sort of
that same fear within this a sexual community, and that
you know, you know, a sickly female is not not
the post or child of a movement, I don't think.
So it's about how maybe that might have been a
step backward, and now these people are coming out and saying, no,
(12:41):
it's not that we're sickly undesirable, it's just something that
we have never had an interest in, right, And they
report plenty of advantages of being a sexual, such as
there are four main benefits that pross outlines, including avoiding
common problems of intimate relationships. Yeah, I mean having a
(13:01):
significant other takes a lot of time and effort, decreased
risk of physical health or unwanted pregnancy. Yeah, if you're
not having sex, you're not gonna probably catch STDs. Um,
you have less social pressure to find suitable partners. And
bonus free time. Hello, I mean nothing. Nothing spells time
(13:23):
suck like a new relationship. But these people aren't opposed
to relationships, Kristen, right, They still have They foster friendships,
and they even foster what they call hetero romantic relationships
in which it's like the married couple where they have
a deep bond but it just isn't physical. And you know,
the joke that the couple in the Guardian made is
(13:45):
that after you know, five or ten years, they're going
to look like every other married couple, with that stereotype
being that married people stop having sex. And so that's
I think where they can start to paint a picture
of you know, there's this sexuality spectrum. There are people
who want to have it a lot, and they're people
who just want to have it a little and the
spectrum goes leave them further to those who don't want
to have sex at all. But that, you know, is
(14:07):
a struggle for some researchers and even just other people
in our society to accept because in that proud study um,
when they were given the reasons why a sexuality had
its benefits, they asked people who were sexual to say
what they thought the biggest detriment of it was, and
those people said that these people are missing out on
a really nice, beautiful, you know, experience, And that was
(14:30):
the biggest thing that people who had sex couldn't figure
out about the people who didn't have sex, is why
they'd want to cut themselves off from, you know, something
that's pleasurable and can result in children and you know,
can bring you closer to a mate. And uh, that's
not a concern at all for the a sexuals who
feel like they're not missing out on anything, right, They're
more concerned that the greatest downfall they reported was trying
(14:54):
to figure out why they are the way they are
because there hasn't been much research on it. And I
think there are some inherent problems with such a fluid
definition of sexuality, and I think that's one reason why
there's been kind of a conflict between the queer community
and the a sexual community because you know, they they're
such a broad a broad definition that it might kind
(15:17):
of money the waters if you're not you know, they're
not gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender. They are sort of maybe
a little bit of all of it minus intercourse. But
after reading all of these media trend pieces about this
supposed a sexual revolution and so much publicity towards David
(15:38):
j who's the head of the a Sexual Visibility and
Education Network, it was like, we wanted, you know, all
of these a sexuals to quote unquote come out of
the closet. But a few years down the road, it
seems like maybe I'm just not hip to it, but
it seems like it never happened well, and I think
that you even have to ask yourself what you know
that a sexual revolution would look like. A y reporter
(16:01):
decided to use that term quite so often to get
a stuck in my head. But um, you know, it's
it's a difficult thing, I think, to come out as
in a sexual If all these people are saying, hey,
it doesn't exist, and be if it does exist, then
there's just something wrong. With you. So I don't know that,
you know, a few trend pieces in the early two
thousands were enough to spark that. Um, I don't think
(16:24):
that David Jay's website has reported any big boom of
visitors and people trying to find people who are like them.
So I don't know if it's something that people think
will pass that maybe they're a late bloomer and it's
something you come to terms with over time, or if
it's just the culture we live in doesn't provide that
sort of acceptance of such a different lifestyle. I mean,
(16:45):
even researchers are saying, we need to do more work
on this before we know if this is a thing.
You really just might have an endocrine problem, you might
have some trauma you don't know about. You can be
taught to be sexual. These people are saying, I don't
want to be taught to be sexual, and you've got say,
at what point do you know is it anyone else's
job to say, well, I'm going to teach you? Right?
(17:05):
And it also brings up something that's come up a
lot um in the podcast when we're talking about things
like you know, female sex drive and libido and all
of that is the question of who says what a
normal sex drive is? You know, are we unfairly you
know kind of um uh? Are we unfairly criticizing these
(17:26):
people and and assigning a disorder to them when they
feel like there is no disorder there find David J
has absolutely no problem with being completely a sexual um
and like it says on his website, it doesn't make
his life any better or any worse. So we'd like
to hear from you at this point because you know,
the research is still you know, still waiting to hear
(17:47):
back from the researchers on on what's going on. And
it seems like the revolution hasn't happened. I don't know,
so let's hear from you guys out there. Um, what
what do you think? Do you think that a sexuality
should be considered a sexual is a discreet sexual orientation?
(18:08):
Do you think that it's bogus? Let us know, mom
stuff at how stuff works dot com and let's read
a couple of emails. I have one here from Kendra
and this is about the doll podcast we did Kristen,
and she writes, I remember the cabbage patch craze in
the early eighties as I was a poor kid and
grew up with many other poor kids used to make
(18:30):
up stories about how they were demonic creatures and cute wrapping.
I think we watched too many horror movies as kids,
and combine that with the expensive toy that we knew
we wouldn't be getting, and we were able to scare
ourselves and others, which I think was a way to
cope with knocking the cool hot toy. However, unbeknownst to me,
my mom, who worked at Kymar at the time, was
able to stash away a couple of Cabbage Patch kids
from my sister and I, needless to say, Christmas morning,
(18:51):
my fourth grade self was terrified that Santa left one
of these dolls under my tree. The poor doll was buried,
never to be seen again in the back, Pa says,
is in my closet until my senior year of high
school when I moved out. I think my mom dusted
her off and kept her for a long while, but
that little doll creeped me out, and honestly, I have
a fear of dolls to this day. Well, I've got
one here from Ray and this is in response to
(19:13):
our podcast on chivalry. She writes I'm a single, independent
woman and I own a house, travel around the world.
Whenever I get the time off work, I vote, and
I feel I'm paid for my work and I'm appreciated,
feeling a good example of a woman who embraces much
of what the feminists fought for. Chivalrous acts such as
holding the door open, offering a coat when we were chilled,
offering a seat on a bus, etcetera, should be seen
(19:35):
as kind, considerate, and courteous gestures. If I were on
a date with a man who behaves as such, I
would definitely have a more favorable opinion of him, especially
if I feel these acts are genuine. This would bode
very well for the next date. Good manners are one
of the best ways to make a good impression. I've
seen firsthand cases where good manners and small acts of
(19:55):
courtesy or sadly missing on a date or even in
daily life. Who wants to live in this kind of
environment or be around people like this? I would hate
to live in a world or these male acts of
kindness we're seen as insulting in where these men were
chided for performing in such as So thank you, Ray,
and as always, you can email me and Molly at
mom stuff at how stuff works dot com, or you
(20:18):
can hit us up on our Facebook page. We'd love
to see you over there, where you can follow us
on Twitter, and of course you can check out our
blog during the week. It's stuff I've Never told you
and you can find it at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
(20:40):
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two
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