Introduction
Introduction
by Admin Wed Apr 08, 2015 9:33 am
What is this, and what are we for:
This is a community for people who chose life without sex for non-religious reasons, usually an ideological rejection of it. This site isn't the first of its kind, but aims to be both a support group, and build an archive of information, with extensive documentation.
We have a main site: It is an ongoing project, and collaborative effort to compile information about what we are, what we stand for, and how to support those who don't want sex.
We're against sexual society, and how it makes sex seem compulsory, making those of us who don't want it, feel "broken", and pressured to "fix" ourselves. We're sick of being told that something must be wrong with us, or that we can't live fulfilling lives without it, and that our reasons for not having it, aren't legitimate. We're against peoples' worth being reduced to their ability to attract sexual partners, and sexual relationships being valued over all other kinds of relationships.
It seems like the only acknowledged reason someone would choose to not have sex for the rest of their life, is if it's for religious reasons, and that whoever doesn't have religious reasons, is assumed to want sex, but just unable to have it. We have to fight against this to show that non-religious reasons to abstain for life are legitimate, and that we can live fulfilling lives. But we're an isolated community, still trying to reach out to others, including educating others on what we are, and what we aren't, as well as find other people who don't want sex, so they know that they aren't alone. For those of us who aren't asexual, we also struggle with others telling us that not wanting sex is the problem, not having a body working against us.
Our approach:
1. Functioning as a support group, where members are free to share their personal experiences, and support each other. We're outsiders of the sexual world, often isolated, and need to band together. You could perhaps say that this is a stronghold; a site of resistance, a space carved for ourselves, to find refuge from the sexual world that surrounds us.
2. A place to have critical discussions of sexuality, from the outsider's perspective: This includes discussing interest in theoretical issues about why someone may want to reject sex, how sexuality affects oneself personally, how it affects others, and the impact of different sexual attitudes for oneself, and those imposed by society. This point may be counterintuitive, but it's important to help ourselves come up with the most effective approach to take.
3. Raising awareness of what we are, to fight against misconceptions, as well as reach out to other people who want to reject sex, but may not know it's an option, nor that there's a community surrounding it.
These are also important in contributing towards our goal, because because there's so little information to support us as people who don't want sex, and there's so little information on how to effectively cope with sexuality, or how to effectively cope with living in a hypersexual world without compromising ourselves.
What's it called?:
One of the issues that we must contend with is that in English, there isn't a set term for the rejection of sex, and members who might be considered part of this community, use different terms to refer to it. Some people identify as celibate, antisexual, nonsexual, or sex-free, or abstinent. This has to do with the history related to this community, and differences in language.
See the "Issues with language" thread for more information: https://iamfortress.forumotion.com/t2-issues-with-language The (self-identified) antisexual community did spread into English, but still struggles with many difficulties being understood, and being able to reach out to others, because of how it was impacted by language differences in English.
FORTRESS is an English-language adaptation that also aims to address that issue, so the primary term you'll see with us referring to ourselves, and our rejection of sex is antisexual. However, there are some tweaks to account for concepts that are more defined in English (i.e: sex-repulsion).
See the "Terminology" thread for more information: https://iamfortress.forumotion.com/t3-terminology
If you're from AVEN (and are most likely identifying as celibate or sex-repulsed): You're still welcome to join, but please be considerate, and don't tell the self-identified antisexual members that they're using the wrong label, or wrong definition (we don't mean asexual elitism). Likewise, they, or we can't say you're using the wrong label for your experiences, such as if you're identifying as celibate without any religious reasons. We understand that you may find the celibate label useful for your experiences, and wouldn't want it taken away, like how we don't want our own labels taken away. Some of us feel like we're in the process of trying to reclaim them from AVEN.
If you're from Outside of Sexuality: Whatever you identify as, you're welcome here! Those who identify as antisexual are the primary demographic of this site, because OOS didn't reach out to them very well, but think of this board as being a particular niche, while OOS is a more general "voluntary celibacy" board.
I don't intend for whoever uses the other labels to be treated as second-class citizens here. The "Other Outsiders" board was created with the intent to make it easier for others, such as those more familiar with AVEN or OOS to share their experiences and viewpoints, but if someone feels comfortable posting in "The Main Area", then they can.
Values/Principles:
The importance of a voluntary, informed decision (when applicable): One of the most important principles is questioning the nature of sexuality itself, and deciding to reject sex for life after concluding that sex isn't worth it; the negatives outweigh the positives. For the rejection of sex to be effective, it needs to be a voluntary and informed decision. This means we can't impose our negativity towards sex onto others, and try to "convert" them, like how we don't want people who want sex to impose their positivity towards it onto us, and try to "convert" us.
If someone is questioning if they want to reject sex or not, and if the antisexual life is for them, we'll be willing to help them with those questions.
We may have reached the same conclusion, but took different paths to reach it: We have different reasons for rejecting sex. Some of us are asexual, some of us aren't; some of us never had sex, some of us gave it up at a later point, each for different reasons. We each come from different backgrounds. For this community to thrive, we need to acknowledge this diversity.
However, we understand that having an ideological rejection of sex, after a thought-out decision, might not apply to everyone may find FORTRESS useful, nor might everyone who may find FORTRESS useful identifies as antisexual. There are other outsiders of the sexual world needing refuge, and it's important that we band together. We shouldn't let labels, as important as they can be, get in the way of potential comradeship.
We also need to work together to achieve the goal of creating a new source of information to help reach out to others. As there's nearly nothing for us, we have to build it.
Guidelines:
1. Let's maintain an overall atmosphere that allows for meaningful exchange of viewpoints.
2. Keep discussions constructive: Debate is fine, as long as it doesn't devolve into flaming. However, if a member wants to share their experiences, and doesn't want debate in their thread, please honor their request.
3. When linking to a research paper, please provide a brief summary of what the paper is about, and the most relevant section(s) of it. Not everyone has the time to read through the whole paper.
4. Be as specific as you can when asking questions, or expressing your viewpoints. There are no mind readers here.
5: Don't jump to conclusions when someone is expressing their viewpoints; it's better to hear them out first, and ask for clarification, than to quickly accuse them of elitism.
6. Don't attack someone's choices in labels (i.e: whether they identify as antisexual, celibate, sex-free, sex-repulsed, etc.).
7. Just because a member may not be of the primary group this site is for, let's not treat them like a second-class citizen.
This is a community for people who chose life without sex for non-religious reasons, usually an ideological rejection of it. This site isn't the first of its kind, but aims to be both a support group, and build an archive of information, with extensive documentation.
We have a main site: It is an ongoing project, and collaborative effort to compile information about what we are, what we stand for, and how to support those who don't want sex.
We're against sexual society, and how it makes sex seem compulsory, making those of us who don't want it, feel "broken", and pressured to "fix" ourselves. We're sick of being told that something must be wrong with us, or that we can't live fulfilling lives without it, and that our reasons for not having it, aren't legitimate. We're against peoples' worth being reduced to their ability to attract sexual partners, and sexual relationships being valued over all other kinds of relationships.
It seems like the only acknowledged reason someone would choose to not have sex for the rest of their life, is if it's for religious reasons, and that whoever doesn't have religious reasons, is assumed to want sex, but just unable to have it. We have to fight against this to show that non-religious reasons to abstain for life are legitimate, and that we can live fulfilling lives. But we're an isolated community, still trying to reach out to others, including educating others on what we are, and what we aren't, as well as find other people who don't want sex, so they know that they aren't alone. For those of us who aren't asexual, we also struggle with others telling us that not wanting sex is the problem, not having a body working against us.
Our approach:
1. Functioning as a support group, where members are free to share their personal experiences, and support each other. We're outsiders of the sexual world, often isolated, and need to band together. You could perhaps say that this is a stronghold; a site of resistance, a space carved for ourselves, to find refuge from the sexual world that surrounds us.
2. A place to have critical discussions of sexuality, from the outsider's perspective: This includes discussing interest in theoretical issues about why someone may want to reject sex, how sexuality affects oneself personally, how it affects others, and the impact of different sexual attitudes for oneself, and those imposed by society. This point may be counterintuitive, but it's important to help ourselves come up with the most effective approach to take.
3. Raising awareness of what we are, to fight against misconceptions, as well as reach out to other people who want to reject sex, but may not know it's an option, nor that there's a community surrounding it.
These are also important in contributing towards our goal, because because there's so little information to support us as people who don't want sex, and there's so little information on how to effectively cope with sexuality, or how to effectively cope with living in a hypersexual world without compromising ourselves.
What's it called?:
One of the issues that we must contend with is that in English, there isn't a set term for the rejection of sex, and members who might be considered part of this community, use different terms to refer to it. Some people identify as celibate, antisexual, nonsexual, or sex-free, or abstinent. This has to do with the history related to this community, and differences in language.
See the "Issues with language" thread for more information: https://iamfortress.forumotion.com/t2-issues-with-language The (self-identified) antisexual community did spread into English, but still struggles with many difficulties being understood, and being able to reach out to others, because of how it was impacted by language differences in English.
FORTRESS is an English-language adaptation that also aims to address that issue, so the primary term you'll see with us referring to ourselves, and our rejection of sex is antisexual. However, there are some tweaks to account for concepts that are more defined in English (i.e: sex-repulsion).
See the "Terminology" thread for more information: https://iamfortress.forumotion.com/t3-terminology
If you're from AVEN (and are most likely identifying as celibate or sex-repulsed): You're still welcome to join, but please be considerate, and don't tell the self-identified antisexual members that they're using the wrong label, or wrong definition (we don't mean asexual elitism). Likewise, they, or we can't say you're using the wrong label for your experiences, such as if you're identifying as celibate without any religious reasons. We understand that you may find the celibate label useful for your experiences, and wouldn't want it taken away, like how we don't want our own labels taken away. Some of us feel like we're in the process of trying to reclaim them from AVEN.
If you're from Outside of Sexuality: Whatever you identify as, you're welcome here! Those who identify as antisexual are the primary demographic of this site, because OOS didn't reach out to them very well, but think of this board as being a particular niche, while OOS is a more general "voluntary celibacy" board.
I don't intend for whoever uses the other labels to be treated as second-class citizens here. The "Other Outsiders" board was created with the intent to make it easier for others, such as those more familiar with AVEN or OOS to share their experiences and viewpoints, but if someone feels comfortable posting in "The Main Area", then they can.
Values/Principles:
The importance of a voluntary, informed decision (when applicable): One of the most important principles is questioning the nature of sexuality itself, and deciding to reject sex for life after concluding that sex isn't worth it; the negatives outweigh the positives. For the rejection of sex to be effective, it needs to be a voluntary and informed decision. This means we can't impose our negativity towards sex onto others, and try to "convert" them, like how we don't want people who want sex to impose their positivity towards it onto us, and try to "convert" us.
If someone is questioning if they want to reject sex or not, and if the antisexual life is for them, we'll be willing to help them with those questions.
We may have reached the same conclusion, but took different paths to reach it: We have different reasons for rejecting sex. Some of us are asexual, some of us aren't; some of us never had sex, some of us gave it up at a later point, each for different reasons. We each come from different backgrounds. For this community to thrive, we need to acknowledge this diversity.
However, we understand that having an ideological rejection of sex, after a thought-out decision, might not apply to everyone may find FORTRESS useful, nor might everyone who may find FORTRESS useful identifies as antisexual. There are other outsiders of the sexual world needing refuge, and it's important that we band together. We shouldn't let labels, as important as they can be, get in the way of potential comradeship.
We also need to work together to achieve the goal of creating a new source of information to help reach out to others. As there's nearly nothing for us, we have to build it.
Guidelines:
1. Let's maintain an overall atmosphere that allows for meaningful exchange of viewpoints.
2. Keep discussions constructive: Debate is fine, as long as it doesn't devolve into flaming. However, if a member wants to share their experiences, and doesn't want debate in their thread, please honor their request.
3. When linking to a research paper, please provide a brief summary of what the paper is about, and the most relevant section(s) of it. Not everyone has the time to read through the whole paper.
4. Be as specific as you can when asking questions, or expressing your viewpoints. There are no mind readers here.
5: Don't jump to conclusions when someone is expressing their viewpoints; it's better to hear them out first, and ask for clarification, than to quickly accuse them of elitism.
6. Don't attack someone's choices in labels (i.e: whether they identify as antisexual, celibate, sex-free, sex-repulsed, etc.).
7. Just because a member may not be of the primary group this site is for, let's not treat them like a second-class citizen.
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