Asexuality: Function, Tasks, Role & Diseases

Asexual people feel either little or no sexual attraction to other people. Asexuality does not require treatment as long as it does not result in suffering.

What is asexuality?

Asexuality is defined as a particular sexual orientation, that is, analogous to heterosexuality or homosexuality. Thus, asexuality is not equivalent to a man or woman having no sexuality, but it is by definition a particular form of sexual orientation to neither sex. Accordingly, asexual people very well have their own gender identity, but they are not sexually attracted to their own gender or to the opposite gender. In the International Classification of Diseases and Disorders, ICD 10, loss or lack of sexual interest is described as a medical condition or mental disorder. Decreased libido, or reduced sexual appetence, is also defined under it as an involuntary decrease or involuntary lack of sexual desire or sexual fantasies. However, the ICD 10 disease concept is explicitly linked to distress. Thus, a criterion for clinical diagnosis would be marked, distinct suffering. But exactly this is not the case with the vast majority of asexual persons. Thus, asexuals do not suffer from not having a sexual relationship, but at most from not feeling taken seriously or understood by those around them. Thus, a particular characteristic of asexuality that does not require treatment is not direct suffering.

Function and task

The term asexuality was coined as early as 1886 by the psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing, who had named this phenomenon in his work Psychopathia Sexualis. The sexual abnormalities described therein were already groundbreaking for the sexual research at that time. Asexuality has existed as long as humans have existed, however, this particular sexual orientation is experiencing a new relevance today. Affected people often feel a certain pressure to be sexual due to the constant presence of the topic sexuality in all media, although they are just this according to their nature not or only limited. The sex researcher Alfred Kinsey was able to work out in the course of a large-scale study in 1948 that, in addition to heterosexual and homosexual desire, there are also asexual individuals who feel sexually attracted neither to women nor to men. The physician Myra Johnson also published a similar scientific article as early as 1977, describing asexuality not as a disorder but as a particular form of sexual orientation. From a purely physical point of view, asexual persons are also quite capable of sexual acts, but they have no desire for them. It is known from interviews with asexuals that some also masturbate, but typically do not develop sexual fantasies about other persons even then. It is also not possible to make a blanket statement that asexuals never have sex. If the partner is not also asexually inclined, some asexuals do compromise in order not to lose the beloved partner. In addition, people who call themselves basically asexual may engage in sex out of pure curiosity or it gives them some pleasure to provide satisfaction and pleasure to their counterpart without feeling any sensation sexually themselves.

Diseases and ailments

Directly related to a person’s asexuality are always the areas of relationships, arousal and attraction. Asexuals have very different relationship desires and also relationship ideas. While some prefer to keep to themselves, other asexuals have romantic relationships. However, regardless of the relationship model, asexuals agree that for them there is no relationship between sexuality and love. Arousal for most asexuals is a process that is perceived as fairly ordinary and not related to finding a sex partner. In the absence of external pressures perceived as societal or familial, the vast majority of asexual individuals do not experience a medical or even psychological problem. This is also the main reason for not seeking medical treatment for self-perceived asexuality.As far as attraction is concerned, asexuals can certainly feel strongly attracted to other people. However, this desire is not to be expressed on a sexual level, but in the form of a close romantic relationship in which sexuality is not the main focus. Asexual persons can find other people very aesthetically attractive and attractive. However, there is not much difference for them in this regard from looking at other beautiful things, such as a picture or a flower. For heterosexual or homosexual persons, attraction includes the sexual aspect, that is, sexual desire. Asexuals, on the other hand, describe their being attracted to other people in other types of intimacy that are defined almost or entirely without sexual desire. Moreover, as research shows, asexuality is not necessarily static during a human lifetime. Thus, sexual and asexual phases may alternate. Non-sexual intimacy can be acted out in a variety of ways by those affected. Thus, deep intimacy can arise in honest, close conversations as well as through shared activities and experiences or through physical closeness without practiced sexuality. In this sense, asexuality is associated with illness or discomfort when, for example, social pressure from the outside affects the individual, or when suffering arises from not feeling pleasure. Possibly then, however, it is rather a question of a sexual unwillingness than a general asexuality.