New research on asexuality shows why it’s so important for doctors and therapists to distinguish between episodes of low libido and a consistent lack of sexual attraction

New research on asexuality shows why it’s so important for doctors and therapists to distinguish between episodes of low libido and a consistent lack of sexual attraction

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Over the past two decades psychological studies have shown that asexuality should be classified not as a disorder but as a stable sexual orientation akin to homosexuality or heterosexuality. Both cultural awareness and clinical medicine have been slow to catch on. It’s only recently that academic researchers have begun to look at asexuality not as an indicator of health problems but as a legitimate, underexplored way of being human.

In biology, the word “asexual” typically gets used in reference to species that reproduce without sex, such as bacteria and aphids. But in some species that do require mating to have offspring, such as sheep and rodents, scientists have observed individuals that don’t appear driven to engage in the act.

  • Nefara@lemmy.world
    126·
    11 months ago

    On the contrary, the article listed in the OP is about people experiencing medical discrimination due to a lack of awareness that asexuality can be a valid orientation. The asexual people quoted in their personal anecdotes about their medical care were reporting that medical and psychiatric professionals continually misdiagnosed or gave erroneous treatment based on assumptions around what “healthy” sexual desire looks like.

    Essentially, imagine someone posted an article talking about how medical professionals are finally recognizing being gay isn’t a medical issue that needs to be “fixed”, and then you respond saying what the physiological causes of being gay could be. You’re getting kick back because it’s at best pretty tone deaf, no matter whether it’s backed up with evidence or not.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      103·
      11 months ago

      It’s literally the intro and conclusion of the article…

      In graduate school people often asked Megan Carroll whether she was gay. Her sociology dissertation was on inequalities within communities of gay fathers, so her research participants were curious about how she identified. “I would say, ‘Oh, I’m maybe mostly straight? I don’t really know. It’s complicated.’” It was, at the time, the closest she could get to the truth. She’d had crushes on both boys and girls in high school and had been in a relationship with a man; being around her romantic interests sent her heart fluttering in her chest. But nothing like that happened when she considered having sex with any of them—she simply wasn’t interested. Her friends assured her she just needed to meet the right person, someone who would light her fire.

      When that hadn’t happened by the time she was 18, Carroll thought she might simply have a low libido and went looking for an explanation. Thinking her birth control might be to blame, she spoke with a nurse, who suggested that perhaps her boyfriend was “just a bad lover.” Then Carroll wondered whether it was the pills she was taking to treat her depression. Over the next 12 years she visited multiple therapists, psychiatrists and physicians and tried different antidepressants—including a less commonly prescribed drug that gave her tachycardia, or a faster heart rate. Eventually she settled on one that had shown no measurable effect on sex drive in clinical trials.

      Conclusion:

      It’s not just young people who are coming around. When Carroll lectures about asexuality, she often tells a story about her mother, Laura Vogel, a licensed professional counselor who specializes in recovery from sexual trauma. Vogel knew traumatic experiences could decrease someone’s desire for sex, but for a long time she didn’t know that asexuality could be something entirely separate from that. When Carroll came out as asexual to her mother in 2017, Vogel began reading up on the subject and realized how her lack of awareness might have affected her clients. “That was a learning period for me,” Vogel told me recently. Since then, if a client expresses little to no desire to have sex, she sends them home with resources about asexuality to see whether it resonates.

      “If a therapist had done what my mom now does … it’s hard to describe what that would have meant for me personally,” Carroll says. “That awareness can save asexual people years and years of uncertainty.”

      It’s hard for anyone to understand why something happens when you respond to people talking about why it’s happening by plugging your ears and yelling.

      You might not care about why, but lots of people do. Why get in the way of that?

      The whole reason there’s medical discrimination, is because medical professionals think it’s due to past trauma.

      Talking about what may actually cause it, fixes that problem.

      You’re complaining about a valid issue, it’s just you’re also complaining about the people trying to fix it mate…

      • Nefara@lemmy.world
        77·
        11 months ago

        Her friends assured her she just needed to meet the right person, someone who would light her fire. When that hadn’t happened by the time she was 18, Carroll thought she might simply have a low libido and went looking for an explanation.

        Do you think she would have sought out medical advice if she wasn’t under social pressure to be sexual, or was aware asexuality existed?

        Thinking her birth control might be to blame, she spoke with a nurse, who suggested that perhaps her boyfriend was “just a bad lover.”

        Would the nurse say that to a woman who said she was gay?

        Then Carroll wondered whether it was the pills she was taking to treat her depression. Over the next 12 years she visited multiple therapists, psychiatrists and physicians and tried different antidepressants—including a less commonly prescribed drug that gave her tachycardia, or a faster heart rate.

        The medical professionals she saw were not aware asexuality was a thing and so she received erroneous and subpar treatment. This article is not about an asexual person’s journey to find out why they are the way they are or something like that. It’s very clearly about fighting discrimination. As you quoted:

        “If a therapist had done what my mom now does … it’s hard to describe what that would have meant for me personally,” Carroll says. “That awareness can save asexual people years and years of uncertainty.”

        As someone who is demi I experienced a lot of social pressure around sex and sexuality and experienced the same kind of doubts about myself that a gay person might have 40 years ago. Again, if you came into a thread about medical professionals finally not treating gay people like they are mentally ill with explanations of how people are/become gay, you’d look like an asshole, regardless of if you were right or not.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          105·
          11 months ago

          Do you think she would have sought out medical advice if she wasn’t under social pressure to be sexual, or was aware asexuality existed?

          Sounds like you agree with me that talking about why people are different and that variation is 100% normal would be beneficial

          Not sure why you’re so upset that we agree, but I don’t think I’m going to keep responding