Well TE Lawrence is listed as a man who has come out as asexual and apparently his friends thought he was asexual.:rolleyes: The man died over seventy years ago. (I’m guessing some of his friends noted his lack of interest in women but wouldn’t have thought or certainly wouldn’t have said he might be gay, which may have been the case.)
There must be a contingent of Wiki editors bent on increasing asexual visibility.
He could’ve had some kind of sensory processing issue. We’ll probably never know for sure, considering Erdős caught a case of Death awhile back.
Thing is though, anyone can edit wikipedia. So it leaves itself wide open for trolls to post whatever they want
Hopefully, Abe Vigoda.
That seems kind of mean.
I saw it, and I could not determine from it whether Erdos actually described himself as asexual. You said that he “did unambiguously ‘come out’ as asexual”, which I would take to mean he said something along the lines of “I am asexual”, but the only statements you specifically mention are about how he didn’t enjoy sex. Did he unambiguously come out as asexual or not?
IIRC he never used the word “asexual”, which even recently wasn’t widely recognized as a specific sexual orientation. But according to the documentary and to anecdotes recorded in Bruce Schechter’s biography, Erdos was always uncomfortable with physical contact of any kind and never had or pursued a sexual relationship. (Although he does seem to have enjoyed and needed friendly companionship, usually talking about mathematics but also including other friendly conversation, so I don’t really buy the blanket explanation that he just couldn’t relate to others socially at all.)
What I meant by his “unambiguously coming out” was that he made no secret of never wanting or seeking a physical relationship and never enjoying sexual feelings. To me, that seems to imply asexuality, but as I said, I don’t have any personal comprehension of that orientation. If that’s not what Erdos meant by what he said, then what might he have meant?
You said that he described sexual pleasure as being painful to him. That wasn’t what he said at all. Having problems with anyone else touching him sounds to me more like autism:
“Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable” - Lord Chesterfield.
Interesting article The rise of the asexual
I’ve come out as asexual on this message board, and I’ve started talking about it in public. Every asexual person I’ve spoken to has remarked that they know if they would be straight or gay if they were interested in sexual matters, but they are not.
I think asexuals are seen as worse off than gays. Whose fucking business is it anyways?
That’s my take on the matter. People differ in so many different ways – it just stands to reason that, out of a population of 7+ billion, there are going to be some individuals that aren’t interested in sex. Not a big deal…
She was charged in 2001 with committing a lewd act on an underage girl. The prosecution dropped those charges, so we cannot say what the deal was but it doesn’t sound like they could make the case. She was also charged with “child endangerment.” That had nothing to do with sex. She was driving drunk with kids in the car. Wikipedia Cite.
Thank you so much. Every asexual person I’ve spoken to is so tired of the “all you need is one good lay” approach. Similar to gay people being told “you just haven’t met the right person of the opposite sex.”
Asexual people do get STD’s or face unwanted pregnancies. It’s worth it.
I see what you did there…
You are very welcome! I’m a paraphiliac myself. What I want to do sexually differs dramatically from the norm, so I appreciate the fact that some of us are just different.
Is there a word missing from this?
I hope so.
Yeah…but there really are plenty of people who don’t see what the big deal with sex is. Then they eventually discover X. And they finally understand what the big deal is. And “X” could be homosexuality, BDSM, the clitoris, or whatever.
So people lie about their sexual behavior all the time, often for understandable reasons. And people often don’t understand their own sexual behavior. And people often don’t have the time or mental resources to devote to understanding themselves, they’re too busy struggling with other things.
I certainly agree that if someone isn’t interested in sex it’s not my job to ask them if they’ve, like, really tried to like sex. Because they probably have, and even if they haven’t, that’s their problem not mine. Unless I’m in a romantic relationship with you, I don’t care if you enjoy sex or not. As long as the lack of enjoyment of sex isn’t causing you pain.
Here is a direct quote clearing up the asexual thing (he is not asexual)- statement from his website.
In my experience, asexual people are way more judgmental of LGB people than gay people of straight people, or than transgender people are of cisgender people.
(That is to say, I’ve encountered more aces who are judgmental, though still a minority.)
Going by the orientation model, I don’t see why it would be any more wrong to say that an asexual person finds sex “repulsive” than it is to say a gay person finds sex with someone of the different sex repulsive.