Recently I discovered the AVEN site – The Asexual Visibility and Educational Network.
Although I’ve noticed over the years that there are men and women who show little interest in sex, sometimes none at all, I was not aware that this is now seen, at least by the AVEN people, as a fourth sexual orientation.
I mention it here because, based on what I’ve seen on the AVEN website, I suspect the asexual population includes a lot of shy people.
While it might seem unnatural for an animal to have little or no interest in sex, in fact asexuality could be perfectly natural.
Wild wolves, deermice, pigeons and many other species reduce births when food is scarce, or they’re overcrowded. No one knows how they achieve this population control, but it’s probably the reason why it’s difficult to get wild-bred animals to breed in zoos. Maybe it’s just asexuality.
Now that there are more than 7 billion of us on this planet, a number no other large animal has ever come close to, it wouldn’t surprise me if Mother Nature is trying to reduce our sex drive.
There are other signs of an attempt to control us. Homosexuality must help, and so should the increasing infertility we see in men and women in some countries.
Of course, this doesn’t work with us because we, apparently oblivious to the danger of over-population, do our best to counter infertility with fertility drugs, etc.
We may be the greatest population of pseudo-lemmings that has ever existed, determined to defy nature and march over the population cliff.
But that aside, you know, it’s a bit of a relief to learn that there are people walking around who can do without sex. Asexual people, as I understand it, are interested in lots of other things. They aren’t lacking in energy or motivation, and they’ve got more time for those other things. And they must be less troublesome. All in all, they should make better employees, better politicians, teachers, soldiers – better human beings altogether.
Other things being equal, I think I’d rather have an asexual person living next door to me than anyone else.
If you’d like to learn more about these interesting people, here is a link to the AVEN site – www.asexuality.org
Alan Conrad 