Not Feeling It

Do you know someone who is asexual? "Internally Perplexed" wrote in toe Dear Margo:

I am a 21-year-old male who has come to terms with the fact that I am asexual. I have no interest in either sex and, for the most part, don’t mind it.

In our sex-obsessed society*, some people refuse to believe that such people exist. I'm fairly certain I know at least one.

However, my family seems to have an extremely difficult time accepting that I don't want to go out and "fool around" with women.

They're afraid you are gay. Or maybe they want grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. Or maybe it is both. Plus, people tend to think other people should have the same feelings and urges that they do.

I find it incomprehensible and unfair to go out with a woman and not be able to return her feelings for me, if such were to arise.

Good for you! Too many people don't think this way, especially if they realize they can find someone to take care of them financially if they fake it for a while.

I continue dreaming of having a family with children, but if I don't hold a desire to be with either sex, is it even possible?

Well, sure, it is possible. You can find a woman who is also "asexual" and do it just enough to conceive children. Or you can adopt together. But lovemaking is also great relationship cement, and if you aren't going to have that, you'd better have other things keeping you together and happy. Do you really want a lifelong roommate? Plus, there's the risk that one of you will change (like get a hormone surge), and the other won't, and that will really make things difficult.

Dear Margo responded:

Regarding your family, I suspect they will have a tough time comprehending your emotional makeup, it being foreign to them, so just make the statement that, so far, you've not met anyone who interests you enough to pursue.

Families not only have a tough time with a member being asexual, they also have a tough time with a member who does not want children or does not want to get married. I hope I never treat any of my family that way, because I don't think people should get married or have children unless they really, really want to and have found the right spouse and are prepared to be the right spouse/parent - AND have undergone extensive counseling.

There is the additional possibility of being a single parent.

NO!!! ARGH!!!! His desire to raise children should not trump a child's need to have both a mother and a father.

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*If you don’t think we're sex-obsessed, where are the parallels in other aspects of life to:

Stripping?
Porn?
Sexual harassment?

I mean, we all need to eat, and many of us eat way too much, but who pays to watch a steak slowly unveiled and waved around? Why don't we have "nutritional harassment" prevention training in the workplace, even though some people are vegans, some keep kosher, etc.? Why don't we use the phrase "nutritional orientation", or have laws protecting people from discrimination based on their "nutritional orientation"? How much of our media (music, sitcoms, "reality" shows, cinema) is about sex as opposed to eating?