“religion is not inherently homophobic/transphobic and religious lgbt people deserve to practice their religion without hate”
and
“many lgbt people have had negative experiences with the church/ religion itself and deserve to respectfully distance themselves from religion, and are under no obligation to give it a try”
I just hope that asexual people are still going to doctors to get checked before assuming they are in fact asexual because it is totally possible they could have a hormonal imbalance or more serious problem and because of the growing, validating community they might not even get checked out first
This is an old attitude that has been used against LGBT+ people for quite some time. It is called pathologization. The goal of pathologization is to find a medical or psychological reason for someone’s sexual, romantic, and/or gender identity. The implication is that the identity is 1) flawed and 2) requires a cure.
Pathologization can be an insidious form of violence. People who promote the idea often suggest that they are merely concerned about the well-being of others and acting in their best interest. The reality is that pathologization can lead to incompetent medical care and medical abuse.
This message is also repeated in the news. For example, Asexuality – Is it Even Real? by Fox News sex expert Dr. Yvonne Fulbright mentions HSDD, asks people to consider other options in her writing, and advises people to seek medical/psychological help if asexuality leads to “interpersonal difficulties.”
The “interpersonal difficulties” asexuals may experience often have to due with (cis)heterosexism and pathologizing attitudes towards asexuality that they may experience from family and peers. So, advising us to seek help for interpersonal difficulties asexuality may “cause” ignores the fact that it is not the cause.
Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) is a sexual disorder that involves an absence of desire for sex. This can be used to pathologize asexual people. Some argue that it is harmless because it makes no explicit mention of asexuality in its original description.
The description of HSDD includes experiences asexual people may have. Asexual people often experience low sexual desire. Asexual people also often experience distress due to low sexual desire, because they are expected to experience sexual desire and act on it in a relationship.
In 2013, the DSM V included a disclaimer that self-identification of asexuality precludes diagnosis. This does not completely resolve the pathologization of asexuality, as there are many people who do not “self identify” with asexuality until later on in life due to things like compulsory (hetero)sexuality.
Furthermore, the medical treatments of HSDD are sketchy. For example, a drug dubbed as the “female viagra,” flibanserin, acts to raise sexual desire and lower inhibition. For more reading on the issues with HSDD and flibanserin, please check out the following:
People spend years unnecessarily suffering due to the pathologization of asexuality in our fictional media, in our news, in academic communities, and in our doctor’s offices. Nothing about the OP’s statement acts in the best interest of asexual people, and it villainizes a “validating community.”
Medical care already biases heterosexual people. We require research in order to provide competent medical care to LGBT+ people, because of past harmful attitudes towards these identities. Telling us to get help is not in our best interest. Investing in research that provides asexuals with competent care is.
In addition, statements like the one made above by the OP are particularly harmful to asexual people who are traumatized, disabled, chronically ill, mentally ill, and/or neurodivergent. Our asexuality may be tied to our traumatic, medical, psychological and/or developmental condition(s), but an important part of us nevertheless.
We could spend years trying to fix ourselves to suit an ideal that is perpetuated by our society, or we could accept ourselves and create spaces where we can function as asexual people. We are not required to “check ourselves” in order to be acceptable human beings.
Heterosexual people do not hear this, so why us? There’s no reason for it.
This is not to say to people that they cannot or should not seek out medical care. This is to say that the pathologization of asexuality does more harm than good to asexual people seeking medical care, and that we need to make an effort to provide competent care to asexual people.
Very likely Germany will have Marriage Equality in 48 hours.
Here is who we have to thank for that: a 28 year old gay man from Berlin who asked Merkel on Monday (while she was at a public event of a tabloid) when he will finally be able to call the man he loves his husband. She gave a wishy-washy answer about how MPs should be voting on this issue according to their consciene blablabla. But one thing led to another and now we’ll have a vote on Friday.
So thank you Uli Köppe for asking our chancellor this question. We would probably have had another 4 years of stonewalling on this issue without you standing up.
I just had a nightmare that I was two hours late for school and my dad was yelling at me about it. I woke up in a panic and remembered “Oh wait, it’s Saturday.” And laid back down, feeling the panic dissolve.
Then…ten seconds later.
“I’m 31.”
The lasting psychological effects of school are very prominent
I have a dream about once a week that I slept through a class, or failed a test I really studied for, or am panicking about dropping out. Then my brain says “you don’t go to school anymore”. I’m 28.
I mentioned it to my boss one day. She told me has a recurring dream that she can’t finish her essays in time and she is going to fail. It wakes her up at night all the time.
She’s 65.
My dad is 60 and still dreams that he can’t find the classroom where he’s supposed to take an exam.
I don’t really have school nightmares. Well, okay, I occasionally have dreams where I go an entire semester forgetting I have a class, so it’s halfway through the semester and I haven’t done anything.
But no, far worse than school nightmares for me are retail nightmares. I have Sit Straight Up Screaming Awake nightmares where I’m stuck working retail again. Those are the actual worst.
I watched Young Frankenstein for the first time a couple nights ago. (Spoilers for both YF and the original below).
Obviously, Young Frankenstein is a comedy, while the original was a tragedy. But the most interesting thing for me is how clearly Mel Brooks understood the source of the tragedy in the original.
Frankenstein is a story about (among other things) parental abandonment. Victor creates a “son” but abandons him, and does not give him a father’s love. Adam’s primary motivation throughout the book is to find some place he will be accepted and someone who will love him. But Victor fears annd hates him and can’t offer that support.
From this perspective, it’s clear that the most important scene in YF is the one where they’ve recaptured the monster and are holding him in a cell, and Gene Wilder/Frederick Frankenstein announces that he will go in “and show him that he is loved!” This is clearly a very clear, specific decision to not make his grandfather’s error.
And indeed, it works! Frederick convinces the monster that he is loved, and this support—and his willingness to risk his life to help his creation—is what turns the story from the tragedy it almost is, into the comedy it becomes.
I have to imagine Mel Brooks knew exactly what he was doing. Props to him.
By most people’s standards, my decision to pursue acting has not been a good choice. I was at an advanced age before I could pay my rent comfortably, and I’ve had a checkered career of odd jobs along the way. But at some point, I realized that not everybody has to be on the same timetable. I don’t think I had that much to offer the world of the theater when I was 21; my career required some patience for several decades, but then it worked out. By now, I’m so set in my ways that there’s no chance of success spoiling me. I’m a fully formed personality.
“Strict new regulations on abortion providers were approved Tuesday by the Missouri House, setting up a showdown with the state Senate over just how expansive the legislation should ultimately be.
On a 110-38 vote, the House approved legislation that requires the state health department to conduct annual, unannounced, on-site inspections and investigations of abortion facilities.
The bill gives the state attorney general new authority to prosecute violations of abortion laws without first notifying local prosecutors. It also enacts new requirements for pathologists who provide services to abortion clinics, and repeals a St. Louis ordinance that bans employers and landlords from discriminating against women who have had an abortion, use contraceptives or are pregnant.”
The Paradox Machine 