MAP Forum

The point of puberty is to prepare the body for sexual intercourse/reproduction and virtually all of the people who identify as asexual have started or finished puberty. Their bodies produce significant amounts of testosterone and estrogen/progesterone, as evidenced by secondary sex characteristics, of which the primary functions are related to reproduction (although they also maintain muscle/bone mass, cardiovascular function, thyroid function, ). It's hard for me to imagine that somebody's body can ovulate or produce sperm, testosterone and estrogen are responsible for both as well as playing an obvious role in subjective sexual desire, despite their being fundamentally incapable of sexual desire. I don't assume that they're lying or mistaken in claiming to not experience sexual attraction but this could be explained through some kind of medical issue (or high stress) or being wired in such an unusual way that they haven't come across anyone they've felt sexual attraction to (I mostly mean that the kind of person they'd be attracted to might not exist, this wouldn't necessarily imply being fundamentally incapable of sexual attraction due to atypical brain wiring) without being truly 'asexual' by orientation.

I never questioned the 'asexuality narrative' because they made a distinction between libido/sexual arousal and sexual attraction to people but now that I think about it, I'm not sure that such a distinction makes sense (practically, I won't deny that some logically possible person could prefer masturbation over partnered sex even ideally) because 'sex' is social activity. Our bodies are adapted to connect with other bodies (even if homosexuals have reproductive instincts that are mismatched with the gender or their bodies). The sex drive is geared toward physical intimacy, not just bodily stimulation, it's triggered by sensory cues. As I've said elsewhere, I believe that the value of sex can be reduced entirely to how it makes people feel (happiness/emotional distress) but everything about the actual nature of sex is ultimately tied to reproduction (sperm cells fertilizing egg cells to propagate the genes of both partners. Even in asexually reproducing species; which all descend from sexually reproducing animals and very few reproduce through obligate parthenogenesis, copulation; with males or females, triggers the production of hormones that lead to ovulation). What, hormonally, could explain the difference between allosexuals and asexuals?

What do you think?

I disagree. An asexual just feels for men / boys the same as a straight man, and for women / girls the same as a straight woman, if that makes sense. It has nothing to do with hormones; it's just their innate orientation, more or less invariant with time.

Some asexuals are libidoists and others aren't; some like to engage sex with someone even without the attraction and others do not. I imagine that most would report less sex drive due to not coming across people they are attracted to, sexually. Perhaps it's true that it has to do with hormones for other asexuals. After all, not all asexuals agree with the "no sexual attraction" definition.

And not everything about sex is tied to reproduction, precisely because, as you say, sex is a social activity. Sex has evolved to be a social activity just as the brain has evolved to make us social beings.

(I am not asexual but I feel identified with some of the acespec, but probably not as an inborn trait.)