In the first flush of adolescence, as his friends gushed
about girls, crushes and kissing, David Jay found himself
unable to relate to their giddiness. "I kept expecting
it to happen to me because I was told it would happen
to me eventually," he says.
But it didn't. When he was 18,
Jay came out to friends and family — not as gay
but as asexual. "Before I heard the term asexual
I knew that I was different from my friends," says
Mr Jay, who's now 23. Unlike homosexuality or bisexuality,
asexuality was simply not onthe radar at that time.
Frustrated by this lack of information
or discussion, Mr Jay launched the Asexuality Visibility
and Education Network (AVEN), a website and online forum
(www.asexuality.org),
in 2001. "I knew there were other people out there
like me. I wanted to create a place where people can
come together," he says. AVEN is now North America's
primary online resource for the asexual community and
it's growing globally. So far the site has been translated
into five languages. Mr Jay points out that a significant
proportion of AVEN's more than 3,500 members are Canadian.
CELEBRATING
CELIBACY
Dr Elizabeth Abbott, author and Dean of Women at University
of Toronto's Trinity College, says that visibility is
a very hot topic in the asexual community. In the wake
of her 1999 book A History of Celibacy and, more
recently, a U of T article about asexuality, Dr Abbott
received a number of letters from people thrilled to
see asexuality treated as a valid sexual orientation,
particularly in the context of today's hypersexual society.
"People don't go around saying 'I didn't get laid
last night' and they really don't go around saying 'I
didn't get laid last night and I don't care,'"
says Dr Abbott .
Mr Jay knows this firsthand. When
he first came out as asexual, many people told him it
was just a phase or that he hadn't yet met the right
person. "It is interesting because when you say
you're asexual people instantly focus on ways you can
become sexual," he says.
He wants other asexual people to
know it's possible to live a happy, fulfilling life
without sex, pointing to himself as living proof. "We
still have the same emotional needs and go about satisfying
them in very much the same ways," he says.
Research backs this contention.
In the mid-90s a team of US researchers found that of
the 13% of participants who had not had sex in the previous
year, a full 40% reported being very or extremely happy.
And there is evidence that asexuality is more common
than previously believed. Last year Dr Anthony Bogaert,
an associate professor of psychology at Brock University,
released his analysis of a 1994 survey of the sex lives
of some 18,000 Britons. He was urprised that fully 1%
of respondents reported having had no feelings of sexual
attraction to anyone in their lives. "It was talked
about theoretically but it wasn't really investigated
empirically," says Dr Bogaert.
NO
DISTRESS, NO DISORDER
Both Mr Jay and Dr Bogaert stress the difference between
asexuality, which they define as a lack of sexual attraction
to others, and sexual dysfunction. While DSM-IV, the
standard psychiatric reference, does refer to hypoactive
sexual desire disorder as a lack of libido, it is only
classified as a disorder if it causes distress. Mr Jay
jokes that perhaps Sigmund Freud should shoulder the
blame for the pathologization of asexuality. He says
there's no good reason to make people sexual through
hormones or other treatments. Dr Bogaert backs this
idea. "It's probably reasonable for them not to
receive any medical intervention that may or may not
work if they are happy the way they are," says
Dr Bogaert.
"I can't change it and
there's no reason why I would want to change it,"
says Mr Jay of his asexuality.
|
