WildChild

I can't accept that having no sexual desire is healthy or normal. All creatures have a built in drive to reproduce. Humans are fortunate in that we can experience great pleasure from the sexual act and can become aroused at any time not just when in heat. So far as I am aware there is only one other mammal that has this capability. Sex is a huge part of our bonding and we need bonding and touch to be healthy individuals. Many women who dress and act in very sexualized ways are in fact non responsive sexually. They are acting. playing a role that they think they need to fullfill. They aren't really sexually responsive or orgasmic, they are playing dress up. They do themselves and women who are orgasmic a great disservice in perpetuating unrealistic expectations in women and men, as to how an aroused or responsive woman acts.

In people who are asexual and have no desire, there is either a physical cause or an emotional one. If the cause is physical they need to get tested and get it resolved as nothing in the body is isolated and the hormonal imbalance that is causing them to have no sex drive will also cause other health issues, some debilitating. If the cause is psychological, dealing with it often isn't easy. The factors involved can be complex and if they see no reason to work on change, it's not going to happen.

My own observations, which are of course limited by my experiences, are that in many cases men who may appear to be asexual and who do not have a health issue such as low testosterone, it is either religous training, a control issue or flat out laziness/selfishness. Women seem to be all over the board for reasons but some absolutely fall into the same catagories as men and are playing control games or just lazy or religious but I think it gets much more complex than that with most.

Some things to consider (the book The Orgasm Loop does a lovely job of explaining this) men's sexual organs are mult purpose and external. Those of you who have not been around infant boys may not realize that they get erections pretty much from day one. Males establish understanding of what creates this response pretty early on. It may not be overtly sexual when they are young but they find out fairly readily what feels good to their penis and what doesn't. Women have everything more tucked away, they do not have an up front visual on their responses. Little girls get feeling of arousal just as little boys do but where boys can clearly see a physical response to account for it, the girls can't. When adults say, and they always do, "Don't touch there, "don't do that", the responses are different. Boys can't not touch their penis, either for urination, just getting arranged when dressing, cleaning, they are going to touch and handle their penis. So their understanding when being told not to touch, is not to be playing with themselves in public.

Little girls, with everything tucked away and no visually evident response, think "don't touch" really means they aren't supposed to touch. Depending on their personality and the stridency of the message, they may literally Never touch their genitals, they will always have a barrier of toliet tissue, a washcloth or underwear. Throw in religious teaching and messages that women who aren't virgins are bad, women brought evil into the world and the need to be "good" and without "sin" and you have another pretty tough barrier. Then add all the talk about not letting anyone touch you, stranger danger, and "men only want one thing" and you are getting close to an insurmountable barrier. Then just in case they didn't get the message, throw in some men who really are jerks and really do want only one thing and are will to do whatever it takes to get it including rape and even murder and plaster that all over the news. Oh, oh, we can't forget sex ed or perhaps we should call it anti sex ed in many parts of the US and they are terrified of talking BC, terrified of having sex and end up here with questions like, "I'm on the pill, used a condom, he pulled out and I took the MAP, do you think I could be pregnant?" This is one area of the problem.

Another area is the overt sexualization of girls and women who are not sexual or sensual. People are bombarded with sexual imagery, almost entirely focused on female appearance and behavior. In many cases these women have unobtainable bodies. Even the ones filmed or photographed don't have bodies like the ones seen because they've been "enhanced". Girls are raised with a flood of messages both subtle and overt, that one measure of their success in life, of their completeness as a female, is in having a male in their lives. Why or how they should interact in a healthy relationship is immaterial. They need a ring, a fancy dress, a party and an M.R.S. to prove that they have IT.

At one time everything in our cultures enforced this and in some parts of the world and some religions, it still is the only option for women. Historically for last 2 to 2-1/2 millenia woman have been male property, bought and sold, unable to own anything, or control any part of their own lives, in many cases treated as having less value than the livestock. Huge changes have been made but they are very much still in progress and in many parts of the world, barely begun or have yet to happen. The messages in religions, literature and cultures still enforce a female subservient attitude on many ways. We are so acculturated to this that we often have hard time even seeing it.

I made a comment in another post that is something I think is often overlooked. For generations female sexual satisfaction was not a concern or consideration. A woman (or often, female servant) was expected to comply with her husband's (or master's) "needs" whether she was aroused or not. It was her duty and her role to do so. Not complying could have serious repercussions. I don't know what they used for lube, probably some sort of oil or fat. Anal sex was a form of pregnancy prevention and the woman's desire to participate was largely unconsidered. Now in this senario having a man in your life who was ultra religious and saw sex as only an act of reproduction was probably a benefit. His demands would be far less frequent, although there is that be fruitful bit.

As humans we learn in layers. A learned skill or abiltity is built on things learned earlier. We learn to turn our heads before we can lift them, we learn to crawl before we walk. A great deal of what we learn is learned from the people around us. We start learning from birth, perhaps even before birth, how to live in the world we are born into. Born into one culture we learn that looking someone in the eye is essential. Born into another culture we learn that looking someone in the eye is really bad and should never be done- especially if they aren't our gender. There are thousands of things we learn unaware of having learned it and unaware of it being taught. When we are exposed to other cultures it can be an adventure or really ucomfortable because of all the things they do "wrong", some are so subtle we can't quite identify them. In some cultures not knowing them can get you killed. That is how strongly we hold to some of our learned behavior. Little of this is taught in schools, it is learned in the home and on the streets. We learn from those around us and most particularly from our families and much of it is learned by observation. Whether we pick them up consciously or subconsciously, we learn from everything we see and hear, often it is very subtle. Mother tenses slightly when father looks at her a certain way. Father's jaws tightens when mother uses a particular tone of voice. We are flooded with messages about our families lives work. Then we are loaded with very specific messages. "Don't touch there", "nice girls..." "be nice", " don't cry", "sissy".

Then there are the choices made, children's interpetations and responses to adult behavior. Remember the Ramona books, she thinks the Star Spangled Banner, has a line about the donzer light? It is actually, the dawn's early light? Children and adults, do a lot of that. What we think we hear and see and understand, isn't what really was, but we base our reality on it. We will stomp our foot, cry about it, argue over it, fight about it. In reality we don't know what the f we're talking about, but we are ready to fight for it. And so we learn about relationships, how women and men act and interact. It's a wonder we can live on the same planet. The only way we've done it for generations has been for one gender to completely control the other. It hasn't really worked out very well. Now we are struggling for a new balance. Some of us have got it, a lot of others are part way there and still others are fighting tooth and nail, in some cases with "honor" killing, fgm, mgm, or burying women up to their waists and stoning them to death. Places like Wall Street are a little more subtle and it will be interesting to see what the women's class action suit brings.

What is all this verbage leading too? Well you can't overcome all this in a generation or even two. The messages are mixed, roles are changing, expectations are changing. Right now we have a jumbled up mess in many areas and sex is a biggie. More and more men are wanting a relationship with a sexually responsive woman, a woman who wants to be with them. They want to be valued for more than their ability to provide financial support. Not all of them have yet learned how to treat a woman or interact with her to elicit or maintain this responsiveness but they want it and that's a first step.

More women are becomming self supporting beyond a subsistance level. They are learning not to be helpless and refusing to be household drudges or simply "vessels" for men's seed. Some are (as some always have been) sexually responsive and not wanting to accept old standards and lables for their sexuality.

Many women and men are dealing with sexuality more like paperdoll clothes. They slip in and out of expectations and roles and none of can stand up to actual use. There are men who will say they want a sexual and responsive woman but refer to women who own their sexuality as hos and sl--s. There are women who want to appear sexual and who imitate being orgasmic but have no idea what it is really, they are poor substitutes for the real thing but help set an artifical standard. There are women who are, to use a term no longer pc, frigid. There are men who have become addicted to fantasy and their hand. Unfortunately these people don't come with lables. Those of us who are working to live beyond the bs, to have real relationships with people who aren't hung up, twisted up, screwed up, manipulative and in some cases flat out dangerous, have some real challenges. We get taken in, love the wrong people, get attracted to the package before we find out what is in the box, get swept away in our own fantasy of what could be and don't see what really is. Others are trapped in learned responses and can't see the wrongness of trying to fit a mold they believe they must fit but don't feel. They think the facade of a "good" relationship is what counts.

What do we do? Getting past the facade can be a challenge. Some people take years before the garbage kicks in and you find yourself in a sham relationship, you can't always see that coming, but DON'T go into something that is a problem from the start. If a man is a jerk before you commit he won't magically become wonderful. If a woman is sexually unresponsive before you tie yourself to her, she is Very unlikely to become a sexual dynamo after she says "I do". Leave these people alone and let them find each other. Let the sexually uninterested and unteresting come together and play Pinochle all evening. Then they can go to their respective beds untouched and feel satisfied and self rightous. With any luck, like the Shakers, they will vanish in a generation or two.

This would at least improve the odds for those of us who want a real relationship with satisfying sexual interaction. The other thing we have to do is learn to really communicate and that can be tough. On a personal note, I'm trying to relearn it, having been shut out and slammed down repeatedly when you try tends to make you skittish. What it should do is motivate you to find someone who is interested in listening and making changes together, to both of your benefit. People change and they don't change. Some change dramtically in many ways, others seem to just calcify, while still others change in some ways but not others. People are or should be dynamic beings. If you change one way and your partner doesn't, you may have to exit. If they change in ways you can't be happy with, you may have to exit. We no longer expect to live to 35 and being with one person for life means 20 - 30 years tops with each filling a socially prescribed role to survive. Most of us aren't hauling water, grinding grain with a stone, tanning hides, tending livestock, washing clothes in a stream and draping them over bushes to dry, tending a garden to eat, making our own cheese - those were the "weaker" sex's jobs. We have more options these days, live a lot longer and can live far more comfortably. We can choose our mates for reasons other than survival and family advantage. The survival of the species may now depend more on less reproduction than on reproduction. We need to be joining together for our happiness and staying together by choice. If we make a poor choice and choose not to rectify it, we need to own it.