Asexuality: Just a Phase?

Hmmm...I just came across this blog online. The author has given an excellent description about what asexuality really is :)...But, unfortunately, he says that asexuality may be just a "phase". This phase bit is something which I'm not being able to completely digest (Although yeah...it might just be a phase for some). He writes:

Asexuals are normal ppl they wait for right person, they lack desire for sex coz of lack of emotional involvement….Asexuality is not for whole life its not forever.

Read the complete blog at: http://o3.indiatimes.com/downtoearth/archive/2005/07/18/182242.aspx

No, We're Really Not Missing Anything

I just read this on the ABC website and I find it tremendously ridiculous.

"Sex is a fabulous, enormously pleasurable aspect of life. And your saying you don't miss it is like someone in a sense who's color blind saying, 'I don't miss color.' Of course, you don't miss what you've never had," Davidson said.

This completely ignoring the fact that some asexuals are not virgins. They have had sex, and they didn't think it was real fabulous. Ms. Davidson went on to say that:

"You might as well label yourself not curious, unadventurous, narrow-minded, blind to possibilities. That's what happens when you label yourself as sexually neutered."

First of all, I've never heard anyone use the term "sexually neutered" except her. Also, one might theoretically suggest that she is the close-minded one, in assuming that all people have to be sexual like her. Moreover, on the assumption that Ms. Davidson is straight, one has to wonder if she is narrow-minded about having sex with other women. She likely is, probably just because she is unadventurous and blind to possibilities.

Coming Out

OK...Since I've mentioned a little about my "coming out" process to my mom in my last post, I decided that I might as well announce it to the whole world! Not only did I come out to my mom, I also came out to my best friend and my brother pretty soon after that! Thankfully, all three of them have accepted my asexuality, and do not have any problems whatsoever with it :)...I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the night of 3rd November, 2006, when I acted like an impulsive creep for the first time in my life! Acting on a sudden impulse, I called up my mom from Bangalore and explained it to her in very AVENish terms. She could get what I was saying but could not understand completely :)...It was then I told her to visit the AVEN website, which I suppose, has cleared most of her confusions/doubts.
My best friend also got the "impulsive phone call" from me and had to go through 65 minutes of my senseless yakking (thats what he says even now just to pull my leg...LOL...but yeah...He has accepted it...Come to think of it, he hardly had a choice...Same goes for my pesky little brother, to whom I came out, via the phone route again... LOL).
As usual, I found another interesting article, which I'm posting here :)...This one is from AVEN, written by none other than Mr. Jay himself, and acts as a "guide" to coming out :)

More confessions: I'm not that big a fan of the phrase "coming out." Perhaps it's the melodrama of it all- volcanically bursting from a place of confined safety to the free-and-judging light of day. There does not reside in us some secret asexual being which will, as illustrated by the movie "Alien," suddenly burst forth to dramatically alter our standing and role among our immediate social network. Still everyone keeps blogging about it, so I might as well jump in.
First off, my credentials. To say that I come out professionally, and therefore to imply that for the service I receive both a salary and generous benefits package, would be eerily closer to the truth than I would like to admit. Bringing up my sexuality and the issues related to it is how I have fun at parties, it's how I entertain children, how I pick up chicks. If done right this stuff can be easy and even fun, so listen up:
Try to figure out what questions people have, then try to figure out answers for them. Remember that you are the expert - if you are coming out to someone then you probably know more about asexuality than they do, so if you're clear and confident then they'll be inclined to believe what you have to say. This need not mean that you have come to answers about EVERYTHING, a confident "I don't know yet" works as well as anything else.
Telling someone doesn't have to be a big deal unless you want it to be. Don't think of it as divulging some secret or forever redefining yourself. You're introducing a new (albeit somewhat loaded) word into the vocabulary that you and your friends/family use to talk about your life. That's it. You get to define it however you want and the definition gets to change over time. It's not about what you are, just how you think about your life. Put the word asexual out there and let them react to it. Don't worry about getting everything out, answer whatever questions they have about you or about asexuality in general. It will take a while to completely flesh things out, and there's no reason to do it all in one conversation. Give yourself time to talk about things as you need to.
I'm not advocating this process for everyone. It can be stressful and complicated, and your thinking on your asexuality may not be something that you're ready to talk to your friends and family about. If you feel like there are things that you want to talk about but can't, then maybe it's time to get asexuality into the conversation.
Source: http://www.asexuality.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=38

NewScientist.Com Report: Glad to be Asexual

NewScientist.Com has a very interesting article on asexuality, which I couldn't resist including here :)...I've only taken some portions of the article and pasted them here, as I don't think I'm supposed to rip off everything I find interesting...LOL...

In a world where lust can be bought in a pill and skin is the marketing tool dujour, being David Jay cannot be easy. At the age of 22 he has never had sex. He has never experienced sexual attraction towards another person and does not believe it will ever happen.
There are many others who have similar stories to tell. They talk about growing up not being able to understand why everyoneelse seemed so interested in dating, kissing and touching; in experiencing the ritual of mating.

Mr Jay sure seems to be an asexual icon! They're definitely right about the "not being able to understand" part...I've gone through those periods of confusion and self doubt too...:(...Anyway...Lets not make it too dull with my asexy experiences...LOL...Here's more from the same article:

The amazing degree of variation in the experiences of asexual people suggests that the underlying causes of their lack of sexual attraction are very different. Some asexuals might simply have extremely low sex drives in spite of an innate orientation towards males or females. Other asexuals might form a fourth category of sexual orientation in addition to the hetero-, homo- and bi-sexual ones, namely people who are attracted to neither gender, even if they have normal sex drives. There is no official definition for asexuality yet, but it probably needs to take all these variations into account, says Anthony Bogaert, a psychologist and human-sexuality expert studying asexuality at Brock University in St. Catherines, Canada. “The place where we draw the line is the desire to interact sexually with other people,” says Brian (name changed), a navy veteran from Virginia. When it comes to having children, some asexuals say they would like to have a baby, but most would use IVF to avoid having to have sex. Much of the sense of community that emerges when Brian and others talk
about their collective status as asexuals comes from the fact that they have
found a virtual neighbourhood where they constantly interact. “It’s made it a
whole lot easier for us to find each other,” Brian says. One such web forum, called AVEN (for Asexual Visibility and Education Network at www.asexuality.org) was founded by Jay in 2001 and provides extensive information about asexuality along with discussion forums. It began with fewer than 50 members but now boasts more than 1200. People from all over the world have visited the site: from Saudi Arabia, Japan and Cuba.

Yup...We are definitely quite diverse...its almost like human sexuality can be divided into two subheadings - sexual and asexual, with their various orientations (hetero, homo, bi etc) under each subheading...Hmmm...That was quite "mature" of me, wasn't it? ;)

One example of that transformation is the fact that people are coming out of the closet. “I was so excited about finally discovering myself that I just went out and told a few of my friends and it kind of spread,” says Pete. By finding this positive identity and being open to loved ones about it, some asexuals, like 23-year-old Esther Dail from Colorado have even been able to fill “traditional” societal roles by getting married to sexual partners. “He doesn’t push me,” says Dail of her husband, with whom she doesn’t have intercourse and whom she told about her asexuality when they were dating.

Hmmm...I came out of my closet recently (3rd November, 2006, to my mom :)..)...and it has been a greate experience since then! She accepted my asexuality totally! I did get the "you haven't met the right person" stuff, but hey, atleast she has no problems with it. And maybe I really have not met the right person...And the right one for me has to be an asexual like myself ;)...OK...I've blabbered about myself a lot in this post...You can view the complete article (without the nonsense that I've put in the middle here) at:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6533

I definitely am not the only one!

Since I have a lot of time at hand right now...I was browsing Wikipedia and came across this interesting bit of information...It seems many famous people, including Sir Isaac Newton were allegedly asexual. Here's the complete list from Wikipedia:

* Benjamin Banneker
* J.M. Barrie
* The Shivers (band)
* Jorge Luis Borges
* Emily Brontë
* George Washington Carver
* Emily Dickenson
* Paul Erdős
* Edward Gorey
* Adolph Hitler (VERY hard to believe!)
* Henry James
* Immanuel Kant
* T. E. Lawrence
* Christina of Sweden
* Isaac Newton
* Florence Nightingale
* Erik Satie, French pianist and composer
* Sun Ra, American jazz musician
* Nikola Tesla
* Samuel J. Tilden
* Simone Weil
* Hans Christian Andersen
* Jean Alexander
* Todd Fuller
* John Harvey Kellogg
* Morrissey
* Maximilien Robespierre, French Revolutionary
* Santos-Dumont - Inventor of the airplane
* The Wright brothers
* Friedrich Nietzsche
* Paula Poundstone - comedian
* Jimmy Koebel

Hmmm...Thats quite a long list I must say! But of course, all of them might not be asexual...I don't know why but I just am not being able to digest the fact that Adolph Hitler was asexual...Sigh...We'll never really know, will we?
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality#Famous_alleged_asexuals

The P990i: The Future of Communication is Here!

"P990i: 3G smartphone that lets you leave your PC behind while travelling, yet access everything you need for effective communication. It’s all here, now..." - http://www.sonyericsson.com

Yep...you guessed it! I'm in love again...And this time, its the Sony Ericsson P990i Smartphone...It sure looks nice and sturdy from the outside, doesn't it? Lets have a look what its got on the inside :)

Camera: A 2 Megapixel digital camera with autofocus is nothing to sneeze at! The Sony Ericsson Website mentions that it only has a 2.5x zoom (digital)...Now thats a little disappointing, I agree...But hey...The phone is worth every bit you spend on it! :)

Connectivity: This is one of the areas where this PDA phone really stands out! Bluetooth and Infrared connectivity make it possible for it to interact with other devices which support the standard (no need to ask...most do! :)..). For PC Connectivity, besides infrared and bluetooth, USB support has also been provided (yep...the datacable stuff). This is of course, faster than IR or BT in terms of data transfer rate. And yes, for all you freaks out there who can't even think of spending two hours waiting for the flight to arrive at the airport, WIFI (WLAN) has also been included in its already large list of features :)...Yep...That means wireless internet connectivity at broadband speeds when you are getting bored! GPRS and 3G are present too. Now, is it me, or am I not being able to find EDGE mentioned anywhere in its list of features mentioned at the SE website? Does it NOT include EDGE? *faints*... PLEASE! Correct me if I'm wrong!

Messaging: I don't think I need to blabber much here...Its got all the regular features present in almost all the cellphones available...Even the one which you are using now ;)...SMS (yawn), MMS, Predictive Text (double yawn) and so on. "Push Email" is what caught my eye...In case you don't know what that means...Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia: "Push e-mail is used to describe e-mail systems that provide an "always-on" capability, in which new e-mail is instantly and actively transferred (pushed) as it arrives by the mail delivery agent (MDA) (commonly called mail server) to the mail user agent (MUA), also called the email client...(more)".

Organiser: Ok...I'll leave the regular features aside (alarms,reminders etc) and come straight to the point. The most important feature in my opinion is the presence of a touchscreen! Yep...Its got hand writing recognition too which is pretty OK as far as I've heard. Hmmm...The Operating System...Symbian OS 9.1 UIQ 3...Theoritically, it is supposed to reduce memory leaks by a large extent...Haven't really seen the phone so I can't say whether its right or wrong...But reports have been good so far! :)...Also, many developers have updated their applications to support it so I guess the "new OS" factor shouldn't be much of a problem.


If you want a more complete list of features, then have a look at http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=in&lc=en&ver=4000&template=pip7&zone=pp&pid=10336
I'm sure that the SE website will give you a better idea than what I've written above...LOL...:)

Study: One in Hundred Asexual

Came across this interesting article online...Don't really know whether I'm allowed to post it here...So here's an excerpt from the article...Read more at http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/10/14/asexual.study
Yes...I'm quite bored right now ;)

About one percent of adults have absolutely no interest in sex, according to a new study, and that distinction is becoming one of pride among many asexuals.The new study was conducted by Anthony Bogaert, a psychologist and human sexuality expert at Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario. It was published in the latest issue of The Journal of Sex Research and is the focus of a report in this Saturday's issue of New Scientist...(more).

The Coquette?

Hmmm... Very Interesting... Found this at someone's myspace profile... Why not give it a try?? ;) Your Seduction Style: The Coquette

You are a pro at playing the age old game of hard to get. Your flirting style runs hot and cold, giving just enough to keep them chasing you. Independent and self-sufficient, you don't need any one person to make you compelte. And that independence is exactly what makes people pursue you. What Is Your Seduction Style?

Exams over at last!

I know... more than one month has passed and I have not made any posts! Unfortunately, I was having my 3rd Semester final exams, which incidently, were a real pain in the ass!
I'm an Calcutta right now with my parents and thankfully, we have a decent internet connection here... I'm definitely gonna start posting again! Till then... :)