Asexuality Awareness What Is Asexuality?

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ASEXUALITY AWARENESS WHAT IS ASEXUALITY? “Asexuality is defined by a lack of sexual attraction or intrinsic desire for partnered sex. Another way of wording it is as being sexually attracted to no gender.” (Asexual Visibility & Education Network, 2018) “Many asexual people may experience forms of attraction that can be romantic, aesthetic, or sensual in nature but do not lead to a need to act out on that attraction sexually.” (AVEN, 2018) Asexual people often feel the need to specify both sexual and romantic attractions to make it clear what drives them and what they’re seeking from other people.” (AVEN, 2018) MYTHS ABOUT THE ACE COMMUNITY AVEN (2013) MYTHS ABOUT THE ACE COMMUNITY AVEN (2013) MYTHS ABOUT THE ACE COMMUNITY AVEN (2013) (Trevor Project, 2018) A FEW COMMON TERMS TO EXPLORE: Aromantic: People who experience little to no romantic attraction, and are content with close friendships and other non-romantic relationships. Demisexual: People who only experience sexual attraction once they form a strong emotional connection with another person. Grey-A: People who identify somewhere between sexual and asexual. Queerplatonic: People who experience a type of non-romantic relationship where there is an intense emotional connection that goes beyond a traditional friendship. Aces commonly use hetero-, homo-, bi-, and pan- in front of the word romantic to describe who they experience romantic attraction to. For example, a person who is hetero-romantic might be attracted to people of a different sex or gender, but not in a sexual way. (Trevor Project, 2018) EIU Center for Gender & Sexual Diversity The EIU Center for Gender & Sexual Diversity aspires to create an inclusive community by instilling a culture WANT TO LEARN of respect, advocacy, and empowerment towards an MORE? open, safe, and just campus. Stevenson Hall Lower Level Phone: 217-581-7117 Email: [email protected].

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Asexuality 101
BY THE NUMBERS Asexual people (or aces) experience little or no 28% sexual attraction. While most asexual people desire emotionally intimate relationships, they are not drawn to sex as a way to express that intimacy. of the community is 18 or younger ASEXUALITY ISN’T ACES MIGHT 32% Abstinence because of Want friendship, a bad relationship understanding, and Abstinence because of empathy religious reasons Fall in love of the community are between 19 and 21 Celibacy Experience arousal and Sexual repression, orgasm aversion, or Masturbate 19% dysfunction Have sex Loss of libido due to Not have sex age or circumstance Be of any gender, age, Fear of intimacy or background of the community are currently Inability to find a Have a spouse and/or in high school partner children 40% of the community are in college Aromantic – people who experience little or no romantic 20% attraction and are content with close friendships and other non-romantic relationships. Demisexual – people who only experience sexual attraction of the community identify as once they form a strong emotional connection with the person. transgender or are questioning Grey-A – people who identify somewhere between sexual and their gender identity asexual on the sexuality spectrum. 41% Queerplatonic – One type of non-romantic relationship where there is an intense emotional connection going beyond what is traditionally thought of as friendship. Romantic orientations – Aces commonly use hetero-, homo-, of the community identify as part of the LGBT community bi-, and pan- in front of the word romantic to describe who they experience romantic attraction to. Source: Asexy Community Census http://www.tinyurl.com/AsexyCensusResults Asexual Awareness Week Community Engagement Series – Trevor Project | Last Updated April 2012 ACE SPECIFIC Feeling e mpty, isolated, Some aces voice a fear of ISSUES and/or alone.
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em & yst Se S xu e a v l i t D c i Reproductive System & Sexual s u o Parente and Albuquerque, Reprod Syst Sex Disord 2016, 5:3 d r o d r e p r e DOI:10.4172/2161-038X.1000185 s R Disorders: Current Research ISSN: 2161-038X Commentary Open Access Asexuality: Dysfunction or Sexual Orientation? Jeanderson Soares Parente1 and Grayce Alencar Albuquerque2* 1Faculdade de Juazeiro do Norte-FJN, Member of the Research Group on Sexuality, Gender, Sexual Diversity and Inclusion-GPESGDI 2Nursing Department, Universidade Regional do Cariri- URCA *Corresponding author: Albuquerque GA, Assistant Professor of the Nursing Department of the Universidade Regional do Cariri- URCA, Coordinator of the Observatory of Violence and Human Rights, Leader of the Research Group on Sexuality, Gender, Sexual Diversity and Inclusion-GPESGDI, Street Vicente Furtado, 521, Limoeiro, Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará, Brasil, Tel: +55-88-988878717; E-mail: [email protected] Rec date: July 2, 2016; Acc date: July 20, 2016; Pub date: July 27, 2016 Copyright: © 2016 Parente JS, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract The objective was to perform a brief reflection on asexuality and its relationship with medical (pathologizing) and social (sexual diversity) practices. Asexuality is still considered a sexual dysfunction capable of medicalization in medical practice, although currently, with the visibility of sexual diversity, asexual identity has been breaking the paradigm of medicalization of sexuality.
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