Among The Asexuals Life and Style The Observer

Among the asexuals | Life and style | The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/26/among-the-asexuals
Among the asexuals

In a society obsessed with sex, it's hard if you have no sexual desire at all. Some are searching for a new form of intimacy
Rosie Swash The Observer, Sunday 26 February 2012 Article history
No sex please...: student Mary Kame Ginoza, 19, and David Jay, 29, the asexuality movements poster boy. Photograph: Alyson Aliano
"OK," writes Annette, in an introductory email: "I am 47 but look younger, probably because I take good care of myself and also do not have the stress of a husband and kids." At first glance it reads like the "describe yourself" section of a dating site, which is ironic, considering that Annette is one of several people responding to my search for case studies on a forum for people who are asexual. That is, people who have little to no interest in sex. "I live in a dull suburb in Minnesota and right now I'm eating lunch (and typing) at the law firm where I work as a paralegal. My job makes me happy to be asexual, as I see all the divorce cases and what really goes on. Yeah, really the crap that is going on in the suburbs: her husband left her for his boyfriend, stuff like that." Annette writes in the breathless, self-assured style of any typical, busy American too pushed for time to mince their words. Life as an asexual person in the suburbs has thrown her some curveballs, like the woman at her local church group who prayed she would find a husband, chanting: "Saint Anne! Saint Anne! Find her a man!" Or the time a relative, apparently perplexed by Annette's perpetual singledom, secretly signed her up to a dating agency. She's still getting newsletters from the company years later. It's estimated that 1% of the world's population is asexual, although research is limited. Annette and others like her have never and probably will never experience sexual attraction. She has been single her whole life, something she repeatedly says that she is more than happy about. In a developed-world country, especially one where Christianity casts a long shadow over politics and the government, it's hard to see why not wanting to have sex would be a problem. But Annette has spent her life feeling misunderstood while simultaneously failing to comprehend what motivates those around her. When she wants to talk about politics, her colleagues want to talk about their "crappy husbands". General public ignorance about asexuality can cause a surprising array of problems,
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even in these sexually enlightened times. This is why David Jay, the charismatic San Franciscan who has become a poster boy for asexuality, set up the Aven website (Asexuality Visibility and Education Network) in 2001, an online community that has grown to include more than 50,000 members who lie somewhere on the spectrum of asexuality. Jay is the focus of a new documentary called (A)sexual, in which he explains the "icky mystery" of going through adolescence without developing sexual attraction. In the opening scenes of the documentary, director Angela Tucker asks people to tell her what asexuality means to them. "I think moss is asexual?" one woman ponders, while another talks about tadpoles. Listen to asexual people talk about everyday life and you realise they face social minefields that don't affect people of other sexualities. "Living in a world that holds the romantic and the sexual as the highest ideals possible is difficult," says Bryony, a 20-year-old biology student from Manchester. "The most pervasive effect on my life at the moment, as a student, is how many conversations revolve around sex and the sexual attractiveness of certain people that I just don't really want to join in with." Jay tells me over the phone from his home in San Francisco that he thinks what the community often refers to as the "asexuality movement" is now in its third phase. Roughly speaking, the first phase began in the early 2000s, which isn't to suggest that asexuality didn't exist before simply that it didn't have a coherent public identity. It was about identifying exactly what asexuality was: not the suppression of sexual desire, which is celibacy, but the absence of it. The internet facilitated asexuality's going overground; whereas it used to be associated with amoebas and plants, the turn of this century saw Yahoo forums opening up around the first people who, anonymously and tentatively, said: "I just don't get what all the fuss about sex is." Phase two involved mobilisation. In 2006 David Jay hit the media with his message about asexuality. People were curious, but the response was brash and superficial. Appearing on The View, a US panel show not unlike ITV's Loose Women, Jay attempted to explain to mainstream America what asexuality was. "What's the problem? Why do you need to organise?" barked Joy Behar, an actress and comedian who looks like Bette Midler and makes Joan Rivers seem demure. "If you're not having sex, what's there to talk about?" said her co-panellist Star Jones, in an "Am I right, ladies?" tone of voice. The panel was playing for laughs, but the women immediately offered alternatives to Jay's assertion that he doesn't experience sexual desire. "Maybe it's repressed sexuality. Maybe you don't want to face what your sexuality means," said Behar, before the women joked about making Jay "lie down". "To be analysed or for something else?" they cackled. In 2012, phase three of the asexuality movement, as Jay defines it, is about challenging the mainstream notion of what constitutes a normal sex drive. And that's when things get tricky. "Theoretically the absence of sexual desire shouldn't be a problem," says Dr Tony Bogaert, an associate professor at Brock University in Ontario who specialises in research into asexuality. "But ours is a media which suggests hypersexuality is the norm. Potentially, asexuality has become a 'problem' as it became more visible, and in a sense it's become the new stigma." Suzie King, a counsellor and the founder of the UK dating website Platonic Partners, says that her patients often report a lack of awareness or understanding in the therapeutic industries when presented with asexuality. "That the industry wants to 'fix' asexuals and make them sexual is the most common comment I have heard; there is not much attention paid to the real psychological and emotional needs of asexuals." Loneliness seems to be a recurrent issue for asexual people, and was even more so before the internet became a common way to reach out to other people under the cloak
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of anonymity. Sex, of course, forms only one part of a meaningful relationship, but if it is thought to be an indispensable part, then those who do not wish to have sex may also conclude that they are unable to have a relationship. Suzie King set up Platonic Partners in 2007 after a patient of hers attempted suicide. "He was deeply lonely and could not foresee a future in which someone would be willing to have a relationship with him without sex." Fortunately King was able to introduce him to a woman for whom no sex life was not a problem. "How many times have you heard someone say: 'I hate my job, but coming home to my husband/wife makes it worth it'?" asks Bryony. "For a while I was very worried about how I'll never have that. My ideal would be to live in a commune-type set-up with some close friends, but as they grow up and form monogamous relationships I'm worried that that's going to become less likely. I'm a little jealous about people who have that one person that they would do anything for and who would do anything for them in return, but my aim is to get the same emotional connection on a platonic level with friends." Platonic Partners caters not only for asexual people but also for the sexually impotent and for those who cannot have sex because of injury. But whatever the reason, the central message is the same: just because you don't want to or can't have sex, it doesn't mean you should spend your life alone. In the documentary (A)sexuality, David Jay says: "When I came out to my parents they immediately told me not to limit myself. I think they had a hard time seeing how I could be happy without sexuality being part of my life." Other experiences suggest that parents would have an easier time accepting their child coming out as gay, and that their responses are similar to those who did just that in previous eras: "Are you sure? Maybe you'll grow out of it? What about grandkids?"
Teenagers at the Gatecrasher Ball in London. Photograph: Rex Features Part of what is so fascinating about the asexuality movement is the broad spectrum of sexuality that it reveals. Neth, a 24-year-old from the West Country, describes herself as a "panromantic asexual". Like all the asexual people I spoke to, Neth explains that she has known she was asexual since adolescence but only recently realised that there was a term for how she felt. Neth also identifies herself as "genderqueer", a general term used by people who don't identify themselves as men or women. "Sometimes I feel more like a girl and sometimes I don't at all. If we were all in some magical world, I'd love to be able to change the shape of my body to go along with those shifts, but, alas, that's a fantasy." She is currently single. Her previous relationship with a boyfriend ended some years ago, before she "came out" as asexual: "His desires and attractions were, well, different from my own, and I don't think he ever realised what was going on with me. There was some sexual stuff at the start: he wanted it and I was caught up in having a boyfriend. I remember feeling awkward afterwards. Having spent years not thinking about any of this, it was obvious I didn't really want sex. I ended up avoiding him a fair bit and it just fizzled out and we ended up as friends." We know asexuality isn't celibacy, but it invariably raises a few knee-jerk questions: are
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you just repressed? Are you secretly gay? Were you abused? Dr Lori Brotto, assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of British Columbia, is, alongside Dr Bogaert, one of the leading academics in the field of asexuality. But Brotto's findings raise more questions about asexuality than they answer. For example, her research shows there is no gender split; men and women are equally likely to be asexual. However, asexual men are much more likely to masturbate than asexual women; as likely, it would seem, as men with "normal" sex drives, suggesting that they are responding to a physical imperative. When Brotto conducted an experiment to measure the vaginal reactions of female participants to visual sexual stimulus, the physical reactions among asexual women were the same as that of women who report an otherwise "normal" sex drive. Brotto also says there is nothing to suggest that asexual people are any more or less likely to have suffered childhood abuse than anyone else. Dr Bogaert's research suggests that a "fraternal birth effect" seemed to be a factor: asexuals are more likely to have older brothers. His findings have also established that "asexuals, like gay people, are more likely to be left-handed". But what does any of this mean in terms of understanding asexuality better? "If I had the funds, I'd commission brain-imagery studies to show how an asexual person processes sex. This would help lead us to other answers: is this hormone related? Is asexuality genetic?" Brotto and Bogaert have each applied for funds, but as asexuality presents no danger in the way, for example, the Aids epidemic did, there is little interest in the funding further research. In a long email exchange with Andrew, a 28-year-old asexual man from St Louis, Missouri, I find myself asking the kinds of questions that are, frankly, offensive. He had a deeply religious upbringing, and describes how bizarre the chastity doctrine passed on to him and his peers seemed to someone who didn't want to have sex anyway. So did your religious upbringing have anything to do with your asexuality, I ask. "Most of the 'mainstream' responses you get are, basically, attempts to explain away asexuality and to not have to take it seriously. It'll be a long time before we have any idea as to what causes asexuality, and I think that causation has little relevance to validity, " he writes back. I'm embarrassed. I would never ask a gay person whether their upbringing had made them gay, so why does it trip off the tongue when talking to an asexual person? Asexuals don't necessarily have an issue with being asexual, but they do with the assumption that it is "caused". Andrew suggests I contact Mark Carrigan, a doctoral researcher at Warwick University. Carrigan disagrees with David Jay's theory that we are in the third phase of the asexuality movement: "I don't see how it's possible to say we're now at a stage where mainstream assumptions about asexuality are being changed while most of the population are only dimly aware of its existence." Carrigan's theory is that the visibility of asexuality is a reaction to the postwar arrival of consumer consumption, sexual liberation and the pill. "Most of the asexual people that I speak to find that 'coming out' to their parents is hard but that their grandparents are actually very understanding." Is the way we respond to asexuals, then, partly a generational issue? "I suspect it's only when sex becomes something public, visible and widely discussed that a lack of sexual attraction becomes problematic," says Corrigan. "While it remained a private thing, asexuality wasn't rendered an 'issue' for asexual individuals and there was no need to find a term and claim recognition for their identity." Suzie King echoes Carrigan's ideas: "Anything that goes against the norm, and threatens
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the status quo, is to be ridiculed and got rid of. The reactions that asexual people have to deal with show how ill-educated, narrow-minded and not really 'open' about sex we really are." Laura, 21, from Scotland, has known she was asexual from adolescence. "At school, all the other girls started getting crushes when we were about 13. I had no idea what they were talking about." At her job in a local bar, Laura is propositioned by customers regularly. "I've tried to explain a few times that I'm asexual but they just say, 'Well you've never had it with me, love!' so in the end it just seems easier not to talk about it at all." For more information and advice visit platonicpartners.co.uk and asexuality.org. Some names have been changed
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Comments
462 comments, displaying first Sign in to comment or create your Guardian account to join the conversation Staff Contributor CJsoas 26 February 2012 12:18AM really interesting article about an issue i'd never really considered before. On the whole, I think it's a bit of a shame asexuals are missing out on such a huge part of the human experience. but then i suppose you can't miss what you've never had... PeteD 26 February 2012 12:35AM ...it's hard if you have no sexual desire at all Sub-eds on definitely on form today PeteD 26 February 2012 12:36AM but not me - delete the first 'on' Recommend? (136) Responses (6) Report
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Baccalieri 26 February 2012 1:26AM
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This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't jekylnhyde abide by ourFebruary 2012 1:31AM Replies may also be deleted. 26 community standards. For more detail see our FAQs. No sex, please. Many of us consider it between individuals.

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Jorrocks 26 February 2012 1:33AM Are you English? What are curveballs, please?

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thoughtbubble 26 February 2012 1:35AM Sapiosexual.

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bobsyouruncle1 26 February 2012 1:39AM I'm in the Rosie Swash fan club! she's so nice, and pretty, and adorable. Mkhpal 26 February 2012 1:39AM Interesting article, thanks!

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Yaffle 26 February 2012 1:41AM It must be so liberating to be asexual. All that time spent on idle distraction, freed up so you can focus on other things.

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una36RWHU 26 February 2012 1:42AM Humans are so overly complicated at times. The rest of the animal kingdom just get on with it. Oldscarborian 26 February 2012 1:42AM If you don't have sexual desire I suppose you could always have a nice cup of tea instead. Kibblesworth 26 February 2012 1:45AM Japanese society is fascinating at the moment concerning asexuality. One in four Japanese people in their late 30s has never had sex, 36% of males aged 16 to 19 surveyed described

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themselves as indifferent or averse towards having sex, whilst Baccalieri a huge 59% of female 2012 1:45AMaged 16 to 19 said they were 26 February respondents uninterested in or averse to sex. Is that girl blowing a kiss ? What for. Japan's population is expected to plummet as a result. It's really interesting stuff, it would be fascinating to know what the causes are. AJCarrington 26 February 2012 1:46AM http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/01/13/no-sex-pleasewere-young-japanese-men/ I'm Asexual. I'm 22 and started to come to terms with it a few years ago, in uni. When I was younger I would lie to friends about my sexual experiences (which I think is quite normal) but I would also pretend to be interested in girls that I simply wasn't - just to keep my friends of my back. I've never had sex. Only kissed two girls (when about 15,16) only then when drunk and when they initiated it. Frankly I'm not a huge fan of any sort of human contact whether it be a hug or a hand-shake. It doesn't bother me. The two or three close friends that now know don't care and the rest just blithely say they'll find me a girlfriend. But I must say when I hear of politicians and others having affairs and using prostitutes, that is very alien to me. Asexuality is not to be ashamed of nor be pitied, but it is quite liberating. holdingonfortomorrow 26 February 2012 1:52AM Where do I sign up? This fits perfectly with my misanthropy. All I want in life is a lighthouse and a gun.

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OutsideBoxes 26 February 2012 1:53AM Interesting discussion. It seems to me that the BBC Sherlock series has contributed a bit to making it happen. dammitjanet1 26 February 2012 1:56AM Response to CJsoas, 26 February 2012 12:18AM Yeah the but the same can be said for sexual people as well. When your brain is liberated from the burden of the testosterone/oestrogen fuelled "find a partner & get off find a partner & get off find a partner & get off" treadmill, the mind might be flooded with all manner of wonders which never get a look-in when the subject is occupied with sex and preoccupied with relationships. Lots of women (not all, I'm sure) discover this aspect of themselves post-menopause. The psychiatrist Anthony Storr, in the book "Solitude" has also

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touched on this in his argument that the creative mind is often DarkPoet best expressed when it's unburdened by intimate relationship 26 February 2012 1:58AM and sex. So it might equally be argued that sexual people miss Given a huge part of human potential. out onthe nonthreatening nature of asexuality and this being The Guardian, I wouldn't expect anything too offensive to appear among the comments but a few wry jokes (funny or otherwise) will be made that would be considered wholly unacceptable were they directed towards homo/bi/transsexuals. MissReptile 26 February 2012 1:58AM There is a documentary about this, doing the rounds, featuring a lot of prominent asexuality activists. Pretty sure both of them are in it. I don't see any reason why there could not be such a thing as asexuality. Humans are such complex and varied. Sexuality is a spectrum and there are a lot of variances out there. una36RWHU 26 February 2012 1:59AM Why some of you is using that word liberating? How can you know what is liberating if you never tried sex or in a relationship before? In order to liberate, you must know what it is like to free from in the first place surely not. MissReptile 26 February 2012 2:01AM Response to dammitjanet1, 26 February 2012 1:56AM That is so very true. FrederickL 26 February 2012 2:01AM . Am I the only one who is not only not interested in who is doing what with whom but is also not interested in who isn't doing it with anyone? For crying out loud if you enjoy it (and I and my lady do) then do it. If you don't, then don't do it. Just stop boring the arse off us by banging on about (both puns intentional) whether or not you are getting any/want any. alex13 26 February 2012 2:03AM Quite interesting, it must be liberating to get on with other interests. There is too much forming a relationship around the need for sex anyway. MissReptile 26 February 2012 2:04AM Response to una36RWHU, 26 February 2012 1:59AM

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How do you know that none of them have had sexual dammitjanet1 experiences? Perhaps 2012 tried it, and didn't like it. Yeah, sex is 26 February they 2:04AM great but not everyone thinks that. Also, you can have a Response to una36RWHU, 26 February 2012 like intimacy and relationship without sex. Lots of asexuals still 1:59AM closeness, plenty of people who have been sexual in the past and There are just not necessarily the sexual aspect. I can say myself when I first had who can use the word "liberating" with are now asexual,sex I was quite disappointed, but then it is hyped up in this contextearth-shattering, and it is not always so. authority as something jackiscool 26 February 2012 2:06AM Response to AJCarrington, 26 February 2012 1:46AM From my understanding of asexuality, there is still an emotional longing there, just not a sexual longing. Is this incorrect? MissReptile 26 February 2012 2:08AM Response to FrederickL, 26 February 2012 2:01AM It's great for you that you are satisfied with your sexuality and all that, but asexuality is still something not a lot of people know about, something people might be embarrassed or afraid to admit to about themselves, or simply don't know why they feel the way they do. You might not be interested in hearing about other people's experiences, but I am sure there are plenty of people out there who are. If it's boring to you, why read it at all? Batley 26 February 2012 2:10AM Why the irrelevant photo of posh teenagers kissing? This is Daily Mail territory. I also don't want baseball metaphors like 'curveball' in my newspaper. There are countless global sporting metaphors - why pick one that is mainly pertinent to the US and relevant to nowhere excpet Canada and Japan ? Guardian: time to step up to the plate. Beatsong 26 February 2012 2:11AM However, asexual men are much more likely to masturbate than asexual women; as likely, it would seem, as men with "normal" sex drives, suggesting that they are responding to a physical imperative. I don't get it. Why would someone without a sex drive masturbate? TrumanBurbank 26 February 2012 2:12AM Response to dammitjanet1, 26 February 2012 1:56AM
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TheBrasilBranch psychiatrist Anthony Storr, in the book "Solitude" has also touched on this in his argument 26 February 2012 2:12AM that the creative mind is often best expressed when How can unburdened by intimatewith a pair ofand sex. So it's you possibly be asexual relationship semi-functioning bollocks? it might equally be argued that sexual people miss out on a huge Genuine question. part of human potential. Applies to priests too of course. Morrissey is asexual. Sir Anthony's thesis is incorrect. And nuns... although they don't have bollocks, at least not the ones of my acquaintance. Frankly, I don't believe a word of it. Kadngi 26 February 2012 2:12AM I wonder if fundamentalist religious people have a problem with asexuals. It probably blow their minds. Think about that for a second; there's a portion of the world's population not interested in sex at all, yet I wonder if they're for or against asexuality. They're so focused on the "sins" of homosexuality or how bad sex is, that it probably hasn't occured to them that there's actually people not interested in sex - at all! DarkPoet 26 February 2012 2:13AM If you know what curveball means, you've lost the right to complain about its usage. zebraman 26 February 2012 2:13AM Why liberating? Socrates said it 2500 years ago: the rest of us are all chained to maniacs (men, anyway...) Leconfidant 26 February 2012 2:14AM I think it's fine if people don't feel sexual and if they're happy, good luck to them. But for my part, I felt that whenever I'm in a professional or public role, everybody has to pretend that everybody is asexual. I don't meant that small children ought to be watching porn, they shouldn't. But you can't say the word 'fuck' if you're teaching in school. Why not? Would kids have mental breakdowns if they suspected their teachers had sexualities or used the same English as themselves? You can't mention sex in church. If you're in an office environment and you happen to observe that the woman who delivers the sandwiches is sexy, and you actually use that word... 'sexy' or, god help you, explain a physical reason why she seems to be sexy.... you've got some pc nazi telling you you've just injured the woman concerned... and all other women. And if the woman concerned finds it flattering, that's neither here nor
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there. The pc nazi will never forgive you. BrasilBranch 26 February 2012 2:17AM Far from asexuality being being an under-represented inclination, there seems to be large swathes of puritanical Although the very best quote, and one which I will use one day in feminists ("Lesbian sex good. Straight sex bad. No double the future: standard there.") and the family values brigade ("we're neurotic aboutSomeone askedyou to be at "How isneurotic as us") it, so we'd like Sophocles, least as your sex-life now? Are you still able to have a woman?" He replied, "Hush, man; most gladly indeed am I rid of it all, as though I had escaped from a mad and savage master." But as the great man William Blake said: You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. dirkgently 26 February 2012 2:20AM I'm not Asexual, just totally unattractive to those I'm attracted to. There is no-one who m I can think of that deserves to be sentenced to a relationship with me. Which is a good thing I think. una36RWHU 26 February 2012 2:21AM Response to dammitjanet1, 26 February 2012 2:04AM But I don't see sex or sexual intimacy as shackling or repressive in the first place. Is liberating of this case a polite term for to cop out? Buzzandhum 26 February 2012 2:22AM Asexual + masturbating? Is asexual the right term?

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Batley 26 February 2012 2:23AM Response to DarkPoet, 26 February 2012 2:13AM When did knowing the meaning of a word bar one from finding it an irritating metaphor? I know what 'teabagging' means but I don't want to read about it over my breakfast cornflakes. MissReptile 26 February 2012 2:25AM Response to Leconfidant, 26 February 2012 2:14AM Sorry but that is a load of nonsense, as usual someone spouting rubbish about feminism and showing that they have a pretty dim and narrow view of it. I'd love to know where feminists have implicated that lesbian sex is better than straight sex? Do you

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have any Batley to back this claim? articles 26 February 2012 2:28AM As usual people who spout "oh it's the pc police blah blah" are just annoyed they can't get away with being sexist or racist Kingsley Amis said he found the decline of his libido a liberating anymore. What the hell does using curse-words have to do with experience and compared his younger self to a man "tethered to sex, or your sex life? Of course you can't mention sex in a a goat". Church, it's a bloody place where priests are forced in to being celibate ( Catholic anyway) and contraceptives and sex before AJCarrington marriage are frowned upon. Your ramblings have no coherent 26 February 2012 2:28AM value to the conversation. Response to jackiscool, 26 February 2012 2:06AM Well I don't want to burst too many balloons here but I've always considered the idea of 'love' to be a sham. Probably the greatest faade of our age. It is funny how this concept of an eternal, unique bond between two (and only two) people seems to have grown since the decline of religion especially (trickling downwards socially) - presumably as people look for something else to define their lives. Marriage is merely a construct of ancient society and the best way to ensure paternity. I don't really know what you mean by 'emotional'. I have many friends of both genders (as we all do) and I like, respect, trust and admire them all. I look to spend as much time in their company as possibly - whilst maintaining sanity. I just don't want to have sex with any of them. therednine 26 February 2012 2:29AM I would hazard a guess that for many(not all) asexuals out there, it is a convenient box to place themselves in. It's not that they don't like sex per se but in fact they struggle to make any new relationships in their adult life, be they new friendships or otherwise. It would be very easy to cause offense here but I have seen it first hand. It's a shame really, so many of us fail to reach our potential in our careers and whatever, we start feeling worthless and that nobody could possibly ever love us. You start ostricizing yourself from social engagements almost out of embarrassment. You feel left behind by your friends who are all moving on with their lives and you can't even bring yourself to talk with a girl/boy, there is how an inbuilt defence mechanism. Like a first time writer who writes a novel but wont send it to a publisher. It's a lonely and often vile world out there, with so many folk getting more vulgar by the day, its really no surprise that a large number of people don't feel a part of it. But I really feel there is a compatible partner for everyone out there, they might just live a bit further away than is convenient. Forgive my naivety! dammitjanet1 26 February 2012 2:30AM

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Response to una36RWHU, 26 February 2012 2:21AM dammitjanet1 no 26 February 2012 2:32AM
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Response to TrumanBurbank, 26 February 2012 2:12AM you made a funny. JimTheFish 26 February 2012 2:41AM Response to CJsoas, 26 February 2012 12:18AM sounds like you didn't really 'get' the article... fascinating stuff but using the definition 'asexual' is still an attempt to force these people into the sexual arena by defining according to who they do or don't fuck. I also wonder whether a period of asexuality should be encouraged in all people in order to help them find themselves a bit more. As we become more hypersexualised from an earlier and earlier age, are we solely defining ourselves by our 'fuckability' and never really getting the chance to understand who we are in isolation. Are latency periods becoming more and more eroded as we get on the hamster wheel of sex earlier and earlier. Certainly escaping from the tyranny of sex can be quite liberating it seems... BrasilBranch 26 February 2012 2:42AM Response to holdingonfortomorrow, 26 February 2012 1:52AM You want to live in a lighthouse too? Perhaps we can shine at each other from neighbouring headlands/islands. Completely asexually of course. I'm up for this one. JimTheFish 26 February 2012 2:43AM Response to MissReptile, 26 February 2012 2:04AM true. Didn't John Lydon once describe it as 'five minutes of squelching'?
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