outing Kinky Friedman

[Jon Ford]

	Mike-- I'm sorry I expressed myself so poorly in my last post. I realize 
that Kinsey posited that middle of the  "scale" would be bisexual, swinging 
both ways, so to speak. I also know that in his research he found a 
continuum of sexual activity such as masturbation, intercourse, and/or 
orgasm , all the way to next to none to incredibly high. In some cases, a 
person with  little or no sexual history could be repressed,possibly a 
closet gay, or perhaps genuinely sexual neutral. Although  Kinsey was 
opposed to considering people's sexual activity , whatever it was, as 
"abnormal,"  he was certainly opposed to repression, especially due to 
social/religious force and guilt.

Encolosed is a little article about people who consider themselves sexually 
neutral. Kinsey would have found this movement interesting and would have 
been eager to interview such unusual types!

Jon





Mating
Shifting to Neutral
No interest in sex is nothing to get worked up about.

By Amy Sohn

In a culture glutted with sexual imagery, it is no wonder that the least 
visible sexual minority is asexuals, who do not experience sexual attraction 
at all. But in recent years, through the Asexual Visibility and Education 
Network (AVEN) and its Website, asexuality.org, asexuals have come together 
to share stories, get information, and make their presence known. One study 
estimates that asexuals make up just one percent of the population, and are 
more often women than men, though research is nascent and one of the biggest 
problems facing them is that so little is known. But one thing is certain: 
Now that they are discovering they’re not alone, asexuals are beginning to 
view their identity as an orientation that is not freakish, temporary, or 
defective.

Amanda, 19, is a sophomore at NYU with short, kinky dark hair and 
almond-shape glasses. She wears T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers and has an 
intense, often overserious air. She has never had any sexual interaction 
with anyone, not even kissing; has never masturbated; and has never been in 
a relationship. Still, she considers herself heterosexually inclined and 
hopes someday to fall in love.

As a self-described “jock and theater geek” teenager growing up in New 
Jersey, she had platonic crushes on boys, but when her friends began 
coupling off, she wasn’t interested. Over tea at Teany on Rivington Street, 
she tells me about when she realized she was different. “In a sociology 
class senior year of high school, my teacher said, ‘Some people are asexual. 
They’re just not motivated by sex.’ I raised my hand. I got a couple strange 
looks, including from him. It was a room full of 16-to-18-year-olds, so this 
was totally incomprehensible to them.”


But she didn’t realize she was part of a much larger group until a few 
months ago, when she read an article about asexuals online and found her way 
to AVEN. She learned that many asexuals are in happy but nonsexual 
relationships and that most identify themselves as either “gay-A” or 
“straight-A,” homosexual or heterosexual in their albeit nonsexual 
attraction. Though they don’t experience sexual attraction, most asexuals do 
have romantic attraction and a desire for emotional intimacy.

“I had thought, I don’t really want to have sex with anyone. Guess I’ll be 
alone for the rest of my life. That sucks,” says Amanda. “So it made me 
really happy to know that there were other people like this and that being 
asexual does not mean you can’t be in love. And it doesn’t mean there’s 
something wrong with you. You look for excuses—being a late bloomer, or 
maybe you just haven’t met the right person, or Catholic guilt. You can 
blame it on any number of things. But ultimately you just are the way you 
are.”

So far Amanda has come out to her college and hometown friends. One friend 
from home told her, “No offense, but we’re not exactly surprised.” And she 
plans to tell her parents, but isn’t sure yet how to work it into the 
conversation.

These are the kinds of stories that make David Jay, the 22-year-old founder 
of AVEN, happy. A bisexual asexual, Jay began thinking of himself as asexual 
when he was 15 and came out as asexual while a student at Wesleyan. “By the 
time I got to college, I decided that I more or less had come to terms with 
it and became frustrated that there weren’t any resources out there.”

He launched asexuality.org in 2002, and the site now has about 3,000 
registered users from all over the world. Visitors to the site can get 
educational pamphlets or buy T-shirts that say ASEXUALITY: IT’S NOT JUST FOR 
AMOEBAS ANY MORE. In an effort to help asexuals meet, Jay recently linked to 
a dating site, asexualove.net.

Though there are obvious similarities between asexuals and other sexual 
minorities like gays and lesbians, both Jay and Amanda are quick to point 
out the differences. “The whole idea of pride is different for us,” says 
Jay, “because we’re not being told to be ashamed of being asexual. We’re not 
told it’s dirty or wrong. We’re told it’s impossible.”

“I don’t think we’re ever going to have a parade,” says Amanda. “This is 
something people want to know for themselves because it explains who you are 
to you. It offers such an amazing peace of mind to know there’s a reason 
that I feel the way I feel. To know that I am different, but other people 
are different in the same way.”

Related Links:
Author E-mail: amy at amysohn.com
Previous Stories: Mating Archive
Also In This Issue: New York Magazine - March 7, 2005