If you’ve been keeping up with the Gerald the Asexual’s storyline on New Zealand’s Shortland Street (catch up here if you haven’t) then you may well have spotted the striking similarity between his new T-shirt and a T-shirt that has been on offer over at AVEN’s cafepress store for several years now:
[Update!] It seems that isn’t the only T-shirt design that the show’s producers borrowed. Take a look at the following image from Asexuality Autearoa New Zealand. The design on the left was worn by a real-life NZ asexual earlier this year whilst the one on the right was worn by the new Shortland Street character, Jesse (local asexual group organizer):
It’s nice to know that they are doing their research, I guess!
September 25th, 2008 by admin
Despite not being physically attracted to other people, Paul Cox, 24, explains how he and his wife found love and happiness as an asexual couple.
People wonder why asexuals bother to get together, but Amanda and I have been happily married for nine months now and we’re both still virgins. Some people even think asexuality doesn’t exist. It’s so underrepresented, I can understand why people are skeptical. I was too, even though I was perfectly used to thinking of myself in this way. For years I just thought I was the only person in the world who felt like this.
My parents are agricultural scientists, so I’ve lived overseas since around the age of 10. I was in India until I was 16, then Zimbabwe for two years, and then Kuwait. I studied in China and New York, before settling in London. Even at 10, I had a sense that I didn’t want to get married and have children. I know a lot of kids say things like that, but I didn’t change my mind about it later on. I wasn’t interested in relationships or finding a girlfriend, and was very sure I didn’t have an interest in boys either.
Gradually my school friends spent more and more time talking about girls and pursuing relationships, but I could never grasp what they were expecting to get out of it. There were family parties in India where all the kids would gather outside in the garden.
I was 13 and had a best friend, Kasim, who was a year younger than me. He had a crush on an Australian girl called Jessica - everyone seemed to think she was the prettiest. We had lots of whispered discussions about what he could say to her, and even though I thought it was a ridiculous game, I wanted to fit in, so I pretended I had a crush too - on a French girl called Sylvie. She was a safe bet because she was so unlikely to reciprocate. I knew she wasn’t at all interested in me. I’d just discuss her with the boys.
There were times as I got older when girls did seem interested in me, but I always deliberately ignored their signals. I wanted to avoid getting into a situation I’d feel uncomfortable with, so I never even kissed a girl. The first girl I kissed became my wife.
When I was 13, my father gave me a book on sex education. I felt as if I was reading about a foreign culture; I just couldn’t see why anyone would go to so much trouble just to have sex. I tried looking at pornography on the internet. I wasn’t disgusted or appalled - it was just boring, like looking at wallpaper.
Masturbation was another topic of conversation in those days, and I did masturbate. It wasn’t a sexual urge for me, I didn’t fantasise, it was just something my body decided to do. People say about asexuals: “But if they masturbate doesn’t that make them sexual?” It’s hard to explain, but if you’re asexual you don’t necessarily feel an explicit connection between masturbation and sexual orientation. It’s just part of having a human body - a physical, biological process.
After we moved to Zimbabwe I went back to visit my old friend Kasim. The last time we’d seen each other we’d been into computer games, drinking Coke and going for pizza. Two years on, it was a shock to see how much Kasim had changed. Sex was his major preoccupation. He had a girlfriend and was on the brink of going all the way with her. One afternoon we were with some of Kasim’s friends, and he began goading two of the girls into kissing each other in front of a camera. The whole atmosphere was really charged, and I felt out of my depth. I’d fallen behind. Kasim had been my friend a long time, but he’d entered this different world without me.
By the time I went to university, I was happy to let people wonder about my sexuality. I wasn’t pretending to talk about girls any more. Some people assumed I was gay, but my best friend Simon was the first person to confront me directly. We were studying in Hangzhou, in China, just south of Shanghai. It’s a very beautiful city, on a lake with mountains, and we were walking through the streets when Simon asked me outright. First he made a joke about whether “I liked girls … or boys?” I laughed but he persisted and said “So what are you?” I just said, “I’m not straight and I’m not gay, and that’s it, full stop.” Back then I didn’t know what term to use.
The following summer I was surfing the internet when I read a post from a girl who wasn’t attracted to anyone. Someone had suggested she should be aware of “asexuality”, and gave the address of a website: asexuality.org. When I went to the site and read the material, I was quite dismissive at first, because you just don’t hear about other asexuals. Since Freud and Kinsey, and even to an extent the sexual revolution of the 60s, we tend to believe anyone without a sexual orientation must be repressed or delusional. Asexuality is therefore an impossibility. Kinsey labelled us “X”, a statistical throwaway category for anyone damaged to the point where they can’t express any sexuality.
Gradually, though, through visiting the site, I came to realise that these were just ordinary people; people who were writing things I’d thought myself, but had never heard anyone else express. It was such a relief. Finally I had a label - a way to explain myself that could settle all the awkwardness and questioning.
I told my close friends straightaway. Only one female friend didn’t really believe me. I think she thought I was secretly in love with her.
Back at college I decided to get it over with in one day by wearing a T-shirt saying: “Asexuality is not just for amoebas”. I was nervous, but I’d already told a dozen or so people, and was used to answering the same questions over and over. No one has ever reacted really badly to me - I’ve been lucky.
I told my mother shortly after finding the asexual website, and she said: “Well as long as you understand the possibility that one of these days you’ll meet someone and want to settle down with them.” I wasn’t so sure. I’d already resigned myself to a solitary existence. I’d convinced myself I could form strong friendships and was independent enough to fare OK. Luckily my mother always ends up being right about everything.
When my studies took me to New York, I got more involved with the asexual community there. I posted messages on their website and there were regular meet-ups in a little pink tea shop in the East Village - I guess you could call it the asexual equivalent of a gay bar.
One day I got an email from Amanda. She was asexual, living close by, and offered to show me around the neighbourhood. In case she was cruising for an asexual boyfriend, I responded with a warning that I was “vehemently anti-romantic”. But we met up anyway, for tea and ice-skating, and we took to meeting a lot.
I loved Amanda’s attitude to life and enjoyed hanging out with her. And she was pretty. At first I tried to treat it like any other friendship. Then I found myself travelling four miles downtown to deliver sandwiches when she told me she was hungry. Two months in, we were at a gig and it seemed like a good idea to hold her hand. I felt cautious about it but just wanted to. I wondered if I could. Then I found I couldn’t let go.
That evening ended with us agreeing that our friendship was an important thing. We wanted to commit for life. In the asexual community we don’t form relationships lightly. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life with a person, there’s no reason to make such a special commitment.
When we announced our engagement, our families were happy for us, and our friends in the asexual community were particularly pleased. On our wedding night, my mother-in-law insisted on booking us into a honeymoon suite, so we invited all our friends to an after party. We played Scrabble late into the night and everyone stayed over and slept on the hotel-room floor.
People always ask how our marriage is different from just being friends, but I think a lot of relationships are about that - being friends. We have built on our friendship, rather than scrapping it and moving on somewhere else. The obvious way we differ is that we don’t have sex, though we do kiss and cuddle. We like to joke that the longer we’re married the less unusual this is. By the time we’ve been married five years we’ll be just like everyone else.
Do I feel as if I’m missing out on something? Not really. We’ve decided that if either of us wants to try sex out in the future then we will see what we can do. We would both be willing to compromise because we’re in a relationship and that’s what you do.
When it comes to the future and to children, we’re big advocates of adoption. We’re not so fussed about passing on our own genes. Right now we’re quite happy with what we’ve got. After moving around so much, I can say now that wherever Amanda is - that’s home.
Here are episodes 19 through 21 of the asexual storyline from NZ soap Shortland Street. Gerald’s mother, still unable to accept his asexuality, suggests that he could have Asperger’s syndrome.
I laughed out loud when they introduced The Asexual Society and Gerald commented that they had the worst designed website in the world. I wonder which organization they could have been talking about…?
For those of you who have been hiding under a rock for the past few weeks, here are the 18 installments so far in the New Zealand soap Shortland Street’s asexual storyline. YouTube user sootmouthnz has edited the episodes down so that you only have to watch the relevant bits from each, thankfully.
Personally I find the asexual character, Gerald, to be rather whiny and over-reactive but I guess I should expect that kind of melodrama from a soap. His parents are hilarious characters and his girlfriend is a frustrated bundle of hormones. It is great to see a TV show take on a storyline like this, though. Let me know what you think…
Most people on Apositive seem to agree that asexuality is not simply about whether or not somebody has sex, or enjoys sex, or even about whether or not somebody can want to have sex. It’s about sexual attraction, and whether sexuality is a part of somebody’s life and a necessary aspect of intimate relationships. The media like to portray asexuality as “Here’s somebody who doesn’t want sex.” Even many asexual people say something like “Asexuals don’t experience sexual attraction, and don’t want to have sex,” again making it about the act. But asexuality, as I understand it, is about more than some particular act, or group of acts – it’s about not interacting with people along a sexual framework, and not desiring and requiring sexuality (note the -uality, the whole sexual mindset) to be a part of close relationships in the way that sexual people do. Thing is, it seems that sexuality, too, is about much more than the act of sex, even though wanting sex is a main part of the common description.
In David Jay’s podcast #18, he interviews sex-positive sexuality-education advocate/activist Nora Dye, who biked across the country talking to sex-education folks. She says that “There’s this sort of assumption, or belief out there, that when I said sexuality, people thought [I meant] sex. And that’s not what I mean at all! The physical act of having sex is such a small part of sexuality for almost everyone – I mean, I haven’t met anyone for whom that’s it, that’s the end of their sexuality is the physical act of having sex.”
I used to assume that people do sexual things simply because they are enjoyable, and the significant other happens to be the person to do them with. Sex, though, is not merely another way sexual people want to be intimate, an extra part of a relationship. Say there’s some sexual person who thinks/acts/feels just like any other, but simply isn’t able to do the physical act of sex. It would be far easier for another sexual person to have a relationship with that one, who still is sexual in every way except for the particular act, than with an asexual person who says, “Sure, I’ll do whatever, just not have sex.” What those partners actually do would be pretty similar, but the asexual person wouldn’t have all the little accompanying thoughts, interactions, and understanding of, well, having sexuality.
My sense is that being a sexual person is about moving through the world in a sexual way with sexuality an integral aspect of daily life, close relationships, and sense of self. It’s true, sexual people do want sex, but it seems that should be thought of as more of an expression of a person’s sexuality, which permeates all aspects of a relationship, than their final goal in itself. I think that in order for asexual people to create fulfilling relationships with sexual people, it is necessary to understand how sexuality ties into a sexual person’s life.
Much of the asexual talk, it seems, is about what asexual people don’t want to do (“I don’t want [____], simple as that”), rather than about all the things that both sexual and asexual people desire in common. And I think that to find those commonalities requires a broader understanding of how sexuality is a part of most people’s lives. The slightly more useful asexual talk is about how people feel, but even the idea “I don’t feel sexual attraction” is almost meaningless without an understanding of what “sexual attraction” is to a sexual person, and what role sex plays in their life and relationships. I’d say, even, that in order to understand asexuality, it is necessary to understand sexuality.
That’s right! In addition to the French and German articles, we currently have 9 Turkish media articles that we’d love to get English translations for. If you can help, or know someone who can, then please go to the Contributions Forum and take a look at the topics marked “Turkish -> English Translation Needed”. We’d really appreciate that!
We’re currently trying to build subsections in the Knowledge Base for all non-English-language media articles and community websites, so if you know of anything that we should include, please do let us know.
Would you be willing to help us translate and / or transcribe some items into English?
In the course of searching for information on asexuality for our Knowledge Base we have started to come across articles, videos and radio broadcasts from the German and French media. We’d love to include these in the Knowledge Base as they are but, as most of our users are English-speaking, we also want to provide an English translation or transcription wherever possible.
Also, if you know of any other articles, videos, radio segments, papers, newsletters, websites, blog posts, or anything else that deals with asexuality that is not currently available in English then do please let us know via our Contributions Forum or the Contact Form.
I recently discovered the following footage of a really nicely made documentary on asexuality on an external hard drive but it seems that, when I digitized it, I only kept the relevant segment of the program. There were no titles or credits and no network logos to give me any clues about who made the documentary or when it was broadcast. I did, however, recognize the people who were being interviewed as Cijay, Kamikola and David Jay, all of AVEN.
Having spent some time searching AVEN, it seems that this might be a portion of the show “Sexual Secrets” which went out of the Life Network in Canada on January 30, 2005. However, I don’t know if this was a re-run, and I’m also not sure if we have the full segment here or just a part of it.
As far as I know, this is the only copy of this footage available online.
If anyone can fill in or confirm the details about this video then please let us know in this thread in our Forums or via our Contact Form. We especially need to know whether anyone has a full copy of the program that we might be able to host in our Knowledge Base.
Apologies to anyone who tried to watch the Sex Files video I posted yesterday - we experienced something of a technical hitch. All I can say is that there are clearly way too many video formats and codecs and that someone really ought to put their foot down and establish some kind of standard that works the same way with all software. Hmph!
Now, having excused myself from any trace of blame for the balls-up, here’s the full-length documentary that you were all expecting to see. For the first time on the known internet (apart from the fact that it is uploaded to YouTube) here’s The Sex Files: No Sex Please in its entirety. Enjoy!
We’ve also found a copy of the 8-minute trailer for the pending documentary, Asexuality: The Making of a Movement which you can watch here.
We’re pretty sure that there are other videos of asexual TV appearances out there that we should be including (for example, David Jay’s appearance on Richard & Judy in the UK in 2004), so if you have a copy of one of these or know where we can find one then please let us know in our forums or via our contact form.
In the meantime, do check out what we already have if you haven’t already watched them.
UPDATE: We now have a copy of the first ever aired documentary on asexuality, The Sex-Files: No Sex Please, which was aired on the Canadian Discovery Channel in early 2004.
UPDATE 2: Sorry folks, looks like we messed up the digitizing process. The Sex Files video posted appears to only be the first part of the documentary. We’ll get that fixed and repost it ASAP!
Despite not being physically attracted to other people, Paul Cox, 24, explains how he and his wife found love and happiness as an asexual couple.
by Apositive Admin