"Sexuality without sex"

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Post by Biscotti Thu Nov 03, 2016 3:49 pm

Sexuality is evolving. Sort of. Like a disease, its mutating.

I saw a post in an asexual circle that had a lot of aces posting about their "kinks" and fetish play. It was very odd. 
Is it sexuality? Is it not? 
Because it sort of comes down to an invisible line of motive or psychology behind it.
is it toxic? Or benign. 
After all when it comes to actual sex, I consider the physical part maybe 20% of the weight against it and the psychological part 80% of the reasoning against it.

On one hand it speaks to a lack of creativity. Asexuals have sex off the table so what else are they going to do with their partners? How about sexual fetishes (w/o sex)? Oh yeah, very creative dere.

On the defending side, BDSM participants claimed it was great for the "adrenaline rush". So is it different from say skydiving? (experience-wise). Maybe not? I can't draw a clear line. I mean, I suppose BDSM is a rather broad area? What's the purpose? Ultra-realistic make-believe or LARPing? Sexual excitement or pleasure? The asexual group I witness listed surprisingly violent tendencies, such as blood and violence I really don't know what to make of that. Considering this, maybe it'd be better if they just had sex instead. (Can't believe I'm saying that. Write it off as a joke.)

And then there was a bunch of people into "master-slave" which I think is toxic, can't really find a silver-lining to that. What's the motives? Are "slaves" lazy? Like watching whatever Netflix/Youtube/Facebook hands them? Wouldn't be surprized, sums up sex-positives in a nutshell.
Could be this laziness a product of over-individualized society? This isn't a thought I had, but a TED talk someone at my old job posted talked about this http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en
Basically there's so many choices today it causes some issues blah blah. I do think it may be related to this topic though.
But this also goes into power-dynamics in relationships. Which is another topic, but also something I think most people on this forum are against.
Furthermore, is viewing everyday relationships in terms of power normal? I could go political on this, but meh, another time.

These are just my opening thoughts, does anyone else have a position?

Ultimately as antisexuals, what we could glean from this is any insight into related negative aspects of sexuality.
Due to the nature of these activities being rather amibgious if they're actually "sexuality" in all cases or not.
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Post by SCH0206 Thu Nov 03, 2016 5:08 pm

"...it speaks to a lack of creativity. Asexuals have sex off the table so what else are they going to do with their partners? How about sexual fetishes (w/o sex)? Oh yeah, very creative dere."

Ditto there. What, they can't do anything not related to sex with their partners? Even staunch pro-sexuals engage in non-sexual activities like dinner and dancing.


"And then there was a bunch of people into "master-slave" which I think is toxic, can't really find a silver-lining to that. What's the motives? Are "slaves" lazy? Like watching whatever Netflix/Youtube/Facebook hands them? Wouldn't be surprized, sums up sex-positives in a nutshell."


Perhaps it's a bit of latent sadism on the part of the dominant partner and some weird pleasure from it on the part of the submissive one. Whatever reasons they have, it's sick.


For asexuals, they sure obsess over sex as much as pro-sexuals do. This is one of the reasons I stop visiting AVEN years ago.

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Post by Admin Thu Nov 03, 2016 11:43 pm

A lot of those activities are ambiguous, but I thought it was normal to view romantic or sexual relationships in terms of power. I've been in a relationship in the past that felt like a power struggle and a lot of the norms surrounding relationships seem to encourage that kind of thinking. It doesn't allow mutual trust to be built, and every little thing seems like a competition for control, instead of taking the time to cooperate with each other. Some are constantly worried that their partner will leave them, or worried that their partner is going to constantly treat them like a doormat if they show any "weakness".

Those activities may be seen as ways to negotiate the power dynamics, voluntarily surrendering control to the other person, but can easily be used by some to steal control. I don't understand why someone would voluntarily surrender control. I've gotten into some heated arguments with someone over this, who argued that power inequality in a romantic or sexual relationship isn't necessarily a bad thing. I disagreed because if one person has a lot less power than the other, then their ability to consent is undermined.

To play devil's advocate, asexual communities such as AVEN could be discussing those topics as much as they do because they could be questioning how it's possible to have those behaviors and be asexual. It could be a gray area that they are trying to navigate and resolve.

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Post by Biscotti Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:14 pm

On it being ambigious
I agree. It's a very subjective subject. On the flipside "sexuality without sex" also encompasses sex-positive people sexualizing things that were not meant to be sexual. Such as "fashion" or any other sort of activities. For some it's harmless, and others intrepret it as sexual which is something of a problem.

On relationship power
Well more than relationship. Power is also used in types of government, or family. It's a topic, a controversial topic. 
I have similarly to you heard people advocate for romantic relationship power inequality by saying it works. I have generally taken their word as their word, as I didn't have any stakes in the matter. I agree with your sentiment that a large gap would allow for abuse, I had an old teacher/friend talk about how they saw that happen a few times.
I wonder how heated these arguments got? I mean just saying "1. It depends on the people involved. 2. It shouldn't allow for abuse" would surely have just pushed that into a safe moral/subjective zone.

On purpose of the conversation
I can say that the conversation that I noted about wasn't that. It was more a conversation, sharing/discussing types of "play"
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