"Have fun dreaming about male tortoises playing tennis"

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At this point you're probably thinking "OK, what on earth is this about? Why are they talking about tortoises playing tennnis?", well replace 'male tortoises' with 'men' and you'll be fine. The reason I'm talking about tortoises playing tennis (or men depending on your level of randomness) is because a year ago today, this sentence literally turned my world upside down, this sentence made me stop and think "s**t this really isn't going away, why can't I just be like everyone else", that is what made me panic and realise that something I had been trying to ignore, pretend was going to disappear with time actually wasn't changing and wasn't going away. In my panic, because that's basically the state I was in, I typed "not attracted to anyone" into my Google search bar, I was absolutely convinced at that point that it was going to come back with results saying that I was ill or a freak, but no; what my search came back with left me stunned.

This guy's got balls... Oh wait!

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Recently the news of a Japanese artist, Mao Sugiyama, who cooked and served his own genitals has been all over the net. The man originally thought of eating his genitals himself, but after consideration decided to cook them and serve them to 5 people who were willing to pay 20 000 yen (250$) to eat them. The money he said would help pay for the surgery.

It is said that all was done within the rules. A physician removed the organs; and a certified cook supervised the preparation of the genitals which came with mushrooms and parsley. It all met up with law requirements and it is assured that there were no infections.

The Trevor Project opens its arms to aces

Not Wired That Way

Recently asexuality has been appearing more and more in the media, from the positive documentary made by the BBC a few weeks ago, to the not so well done House episode which portrayed asexuality as a dysfunction caused by an illness that could be cured rather than a legitimate orientation. The latter, provoked a certain uproar in the asexual community which is only understandable. Here we are, trying to get ourselves recognized as the fourth major sexual orientation alongside heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality, when suddenly this TV series pops up portraying asexuality as an illness which can be cured. And with society as it is today, there are more chances of it listening to a fiction's definition of the orientation rather than the real definition portrayed in the news. The producer, after many complaints sent by aces expressed their apologies about having given the wrong impression about asexuality, as it was not their intention.

The spectrums of infinity

Before going into an explanation about the differences between sexuality and asexuality, sex and gender, I would like to say that labels are not exclusive. You don't have to label yourself at all if you don't feel like any existing word can define your orientation, or you can pick the closest existing word to how you feel and add to it or mix up different terms. Who is to tell you how you feel? No one. You alone know who you are. The spectrums of sexuality and gender are spectrums of infinity, no one fits perfectly into any box. Some people are against labeling all together. However, labels can be useful in some circumstances such as when you’re questioning or coming out. They can help explain to people how you feel and who you are. 

Asexuality on the BBC

Jenni Goodchild, a 21 year old student in Oxford, was interviewed a few months ago by the BBC about "how it feels to be asexual in an increasingly sexualised society". As well as being a student, Jenni is also an active member of the asexual visibility and education network (AVEN) the biggest community of asexuals online.

Last night, 16 January 2012, the interview was released on an episode of « How sex works » on BBC3. The series aim is to look at the different physiological, neurological and psychological effects of sex.

Jenni talks about some of the most common reactions she’s had when talking about her asexuality - "People say 'well if you've not tried it, then how do you know?'" - and how it is possible to be in a relationship with someone ‘sexual’ by putting forward another important point, romantic attraction - "[Romantic asexuals] don't experience sexual attraction, but they do experience romantic attraction. So they will look at someone and they won't respond sexually to them, but they might want to get closer to them, to find out more about them, to share things with them."
Her boyfriend is also interviewed about their relationship -"The first time that Jenni mentioned in conversation that she was asexual, my initial thought was 'hmm that's kind of odd."
Tim and Jenna spend a lot of time together focusing on the romantic aspects of their relationship, such as baking cake !

It was nice to see someone other than David Jay being interviewed - outside the US - about asexuality.
And a thumbs-up to the BBC who did a very good job, they couldn’t have done much better. We need more visibility like this !
Here is a link to the episode. It's a link that is only available in the UK. For those who only want to watch the part about asexuality, it's around 17 minutes.

Normal with a capital A

Growing up as an asexual in an over sexualised world can be very challenging. For a start, you don’t know who you are because you never hear the word asexual in your every day life and if it gets mentioned on TV it’s hardly an open-minded look upon it, so it sounds ‘wrong’.

For my part, I’d never heard the word ‘asexual’ until June 2011 be used in any different context other than to describe amoebas reproduction. So forget about asexuality as a sexual orientation.
Of course, you grow up knowing that you’re different, and that you don’t feel the way your friends do. You shy away at things that amuse them, and don’t understand their talks about someone being ‘hot’.
You grow up thinking you’re weird, ill, and abnormal. You never talk about it. You daren’t, besides how can you talk about something when you don’t even know what it is ? You keep on believing that some day soon all those feelings your friends are talking about are suddenly going to appear. But, they don’t…

In the end you end up stumbling across the term asexual on the internet, or by typing some words in Google search bar, or by over-hearing people talking and curiosity/instinct incites you to look it up. And then it hits you. You’re so relieved to find that you’re not on your own and to finally discover that you are normal.

Luckily some people are trying to bring more visibility to asexuality, such as David Jay founder of AVEN, so that in future people will no longer have to worry about ‘not feeling what their friends’ feel, and so that people begin to accept asexuality as a real orientation.