...An increasing number of people say yes [to being indiffernt to sex] and offer themselves as proof. They describe themselves as asexual, and they call their condition normal, not the result of confused sexual orientation, a fear of intimacy or a temporary lapse of desire. They would like the world to understand that they can live their entire lives happily without ever having sex.I confess I've called myself that—asexual. Once, back in college, I've even confided to a friend—a girl—that I am an asexual because, well, I had found not one single person that I was attracted to sexually. Well, that was a lie, but back then, it wasn't so much a lie, but denial. I hadn't allowed myself to be attracted to anyone. If somehow my hormones got the better of me, the attraction was, inevitably, for a guy, the very feeling which I suppressed so well, I'm sure Opus Dei, the Spanish Inquisition, and even Apostle Paul—who advocated a celibate lifestyle—would have been proud. My attraction for a man was reinterpreted as my admiration of his character; the love I had for a man, I would say, was philia love, based on God's agape love, minus eros love. Any eros I felt in the groin was brought up to my head to be transfigured. So, naturally, it was easy for me to classify myself as an asexual.
I just hope that those who describe themselves as an asexual do so because they are sure that they are one and not because of denial.
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