Also at the Great SF Book Swap, I picked up a weighty tome (525 pages!) called Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission. That sounds pretty scandalous, but it's actually quite the serious study. Ah yes, I guess I'll have to find my cheap thrills elsewhere.
However, I've read the first 50 pages, and I'm discovering that asexuals and D/Sers (as the book calls them) have more in common than I ever thought possible. Even though Aces avoid sex while D/Sers dream up new ways of having it, we've both been pegged as vaguely non-human. Aces and D/Sers see straight, purely reproductive sex as nothing to get excited about, and so the more haterific in our midst label both groups "sexual deviants". Funny, isn't it?
Both groups suffer from a lack of research and education, and young members often feel freaky and alone. Different Loving also makes a good case for the idea that we all suffer from sexual mores still mired in Victorian-era theories. If medicine was stuck in the same place that our sex research is, I'd be writing from a sanitarium right now. Cough, cough.
I also found the writers' attitudes (there are three of them) to be refreshing. They're not advocating certain kinds of behaviors, but encouraging us to live and let live, as long as our actions harm no one. And that is a view I'd like to see a lot more "experts" adopt.
3 comments:
Hey there. It's amazing to me how there are at once so many differences and yet so many similarities between, well, everyone! It seems like such an obvious, common-sense sort of insight, and yet all the "experts" seem so stuck in their rigid, strict binary views of the world.
As a self-professed bisexual, submissive guy, I am always really happy to hear about attitudes from others who don't share my interests that aren't also pigeonholing it as some kind of plague. Thanks for being open-minded about it.
I admit I know very little about asexuality but am interested in learning more. It's certainly not a label I can identify personally with, but I'm almost positive the learning will prove personally beneficial.
Ooh, I'm glad someone commented on this post. I found this quote on your blog:
If you could remove your kinky sexuality, become ‘vanilla,’ conventionally sexualized, would you? Would you rather have normal erotic needs than face the challenges and frustrations of being unlike the majority? Could being like most people be a sufficient repayment for knowing exactly what you need even though it is specialized and not easily realized? Would you rather be normal?
and I could totally relate. It seems like whenever asexuality gets publicity, someone is asking: "if there was a pill to make you sexual, would you take it?" And I've mentioned here before how I'd have to think long and hard. Normality's such a weird chimera. If you want a basic overview of asexuality, AVEN-- www.asexuality.org-- is always great for that. :-)
That quote is from Richard Evans Lee, a rather eloquent writer and fellow D/s'er. :) His writings are somewhat prolific around the web, in various different forms. As for reading about Asexuality, I spent a good 3 hours last night in one of my insomnia-driven bursts of "I want to learn more about something!" reading through the Asexuality information on AVEN and then combing through Wikipedia and your blog. A lot of what I read seems kind of alien to me, but that's obviously because my sex drive is pretty high so I can't relate directly. But even my typically pretty high sex drive goes in waves, and some of what I read struck me as surprisingly familiar.
Anyway, I learned a lot and intend to keep my ear to the ground so that I'll be able to pick up more as it comes.
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