Notes of an Asexual Muslim

neutrois:

I see Jesse Bering is improving his knowledge on asexuality (contrast this to an article on his Scientific American column a few years ago on the same subject). Not to mention that asexuality is now getting press coverage on “mainstream” gay media too.

At least breaching the subject means people are now thinking about it. What do you all make of this article?

The column in the Advocate appears to be the same as a 2009 article from Scientific American by the same author, which is reproduced in his new book and excerpted from the book to the Advocate. Coincidentally, I came across the Scientific American article last week via scribeling’s post.

The article is not as bad as some out there and does a decent job of conveying some basic facts about asexuality and the asexual community, but contains a number of problematic assumptions (some of which are discussed in scribeling’s post) and the last page is pretty bad including the usual “how is asexuality even possible?” blind spot so many people seem to have, as well as confusing the ability to become aroused with sexual attraction. (Incidentally, a scientific study in 2011 already answered that question. Asexuals are similar to non-asexuals in the ability to become sexually aroused and in the subjective experience of desire, but lack sexual attraction to others. Just like we’ve been telling you!)

Conclusion: Could be worse, could be a lot better. I’m not sure that’s saying much. I think the article appearing in the Advocate may help with visibility, but asexuals may also find ourselves having to correct misapprehensions because of it.