Oscar and Eva are in love. Oscar, full of energy, bustles about and worries about the precise measurements for banana bread. Eva, more introverted and shy, seems content enough talking to me.
I’m in their apartment near the banks of the Grand Canal in Dublin 8. Over the past year, Oscar James (22) and Eva Lacy (28) have emerged as two of the unlikely spokespeople for an equally unlikely cause. They say that they rarely, if ever, experience sexual attraction. Both broadly identify as asexual, or, to use a term that is becoming more common in the asexual community, “aces”. An estimated 1 per cent of the population may be asexual.
“I felt alone growing up,” says Lacy. “Everyone was talking about who they fancied. I fancied nobody. I thought that I might be gay, but wasn’t sexually attracted to either guys or girls. I went to a therapist. I asked if it was hormone-related, and had tests done. My hormones were normal. I had to accept that sexual desire wasn’t really happening for me.”
Aces often accept their lack of sexuality with relative ease. Katie O'Flynn (22) is in her final year of a theoretical physics degree at Trinity College. She's funny, highly intelligent, warm and engaging when we meet at a coffee shop in Dublin. "When I was a teenager, girls started talking about who they found sexy. I just wasn't interested. I thought that would change and I'd start to feel those urges, but I didn't long for them. By 16, I had no interest. I came across asexuality on the internet, and I knew. Immediately."
Was this a scary realisation? “It was a bit strange, but mostly reassuring. Do I have to come out? Should I speak to a doctor? I didn’t feel I needed to because I wasn’t distressed about being asexual.”
At the age of 16, O’Flynn told her parents. Her mother asked if she had sex or masturbated, or kissed anyone. She said that she hadn’t and didn’t have any interest. Her father joked: “Is this a coming-out thing?” “I think so,” she replied.
Discrimination
In 2012, Dr Gordon Hodson, a prejudice researcher at Brock University in Canada, conducted a survey that found that those who disliked gay and bisexual people also tended to dislike asexual people. O'Flynn, however, is very clear that she has not, so far at least, been a victim of discrimination. "Nobody is attempting to deprive me of my civil rights like they do with lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans[gender] people," she says. "Nowhere in this world, that I know of, are people killed for being asexual. There are minor annoyances, particularly the assumption that I just haven't met the right person."
People have assumed that O’Flynn is a repressed lesbian, or has been brought up with a religious or anti-sex view. She’s also asked how she knows that she doesn’t like sex if she’s never tried it. “You knew you wanted sex when you were a virgin,” she replies. “I know that sexual orientation can be more fluid than people appreciate, but I’ve had the same static experience all my life. It won’t change.”
While O’Flynn identifies as an “aromantic asexual” who has never been sexually or romantically attracted to anyone, James says he is “grey-ace”, meaning that he doesn’t often experience sexual attraction; and also “demisexual”, meaning that he only tends to experience sexual attraction after forming a deep bond with someone. He accepts that this may be difficult to understand. Both James and Lacy are “romantic asexuals”, but Lacy is less fussed about sex, experiencing romantic attractions without an urge for sex. Aces can experience romantic attraction towards either sex, and some form relationships.
Aces are not afraid of sex. Some can and do have sex, particularly to please a partner, without necessarily enjoying it. They may enjoy the physical stimulation without being attracted to their partner. One sex expert, Prof Lori Brotto of the University of British Columbia, found that at least 50 per cent of aces masturbate, but rarely think of other people when doing so. The implication is that masturbation may be a physical, not sexual, release for these people.
I spoke to two others. Vivien White (23) is an aromantic asexual. He feels that society places too much value on extroversion and sexuality, and that men in particular are defined by this. He is sex-positive, but says that Irish people often wrongly think that aces want to drag us back to a sexually repressed time. A 22-year-old woman, who asked not to be named, said she identified as asexual now and always had, but that she was open to this changing.
Friends and family of aces worry that they will lead a lonely life. It’s hard for me not to somewhat painfully remember people expressing this unfounded worry when I came out as gay in my teens.
O’Flynn, although aromantic, sees the allure of relationships. “I like the idea of growing old and sharing my life with someone. At my age, it’s very normal to be single, but of course I worry about being 30 and everyone being paired up. I don’t want to live alone. It’s a bit frustrating that a romantic relationship is the standard way for people to avoid that.” Lacy and O’Flynn would both like to have children one day.
Aces still crave the human touch. O’Flynn describes herself as “very tactile”. James, at one point during our interview, leans over and gives Lacy a tender and protective kiss on the forehead. On the face of it, it’s difficult to see why their love, affection and commitment should be considered particularly different to that of any other couple: they simply have a different bedroom narrative.
Last year a small contingent joined the Dublin Pride parade under the banner "Asexuals Exist". The Asexuality in Ireland Facebook group has just over 30 members – a tiny fraction of the true numbers who may be asexual. The movement is rising because there are greater societal and peer pressures to have sex, particularly in younger generations; not everybody can conform to this. Strikingly, the leaders of Ireland's movement are very young – most in their early to mid 20s with a handful of outliers pushing 30.
Psychotherapist Trish Murphy, who writes an advice column for this newspaper, is not surprised by the movement's age profile. "By the age of 30, people are more likely to have worked out a way of handling things. Clients do come to me for help because their lack of sexual attraction or desire is causing them to feel isolated and lonely, but they rarely describe themselves as asexual. They speak of 'feeling frigid' or say that they 'feel broken'. "
Married couples often struggle to maintain an active sex life, and some find the motivation to stay engaged in sex difficult. A lack of desire and intimacy has led to marriage break-ups, says Murphy. “It’s wrong to assume that the sex never works, as people can be generous in relationships, but it requires communication.” She stresses that everyone has a different range of sexual desire that can fluctuate through life.
Murphy says that sex can be even more complicated for women than for men. She believes that couples with mixed sexual desires can reach an understanding.
“Sex isn’t all about penetration and orgasm, it’s also about intimacy, and people can connect from cuddling and being close. I hope they have double beds in nursing homes when I get older – even if only to cuddle.”
ASEXUALITY: THE BIRTH OF A NEW MOVEMENT?
Back in 2002, nobody cared about who wasn’t having sex. Then, a handsome and charismatic 20-year-old American called David Jay established the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (Aven). Since then, Aven has grown to more than 70,000 registered members worldwide.
In 2011, the prominent American sex advice columnist and gay-rights activist Dan Savage questioned the growing visibility of the asexuality movement.
“They are marching for the right to not do anything,” he said. “Hilarious. You don’t need to march for that right. You just need to stay home, not do anything.” The ace movement was angered by Savage’s subsequent implications that asexuality is not a fourth sexual orientation but a deliberate choice, like chastity.
In the UK, about 1 per cent of the population say they have “never had a sexual attraction to anyone”. Based on these figures, it’s likely that there are about 40,000 asexual people in Ireland, and thousands more with relatively low levels of sexual attraction to other people.
Depression, medications, sexual abuse, relationship problems, postnatal depression and some genetic conditions can have a short- or long-term impact on sexual attraction and desire. Also, desire waxes and wanes for most people over the course of their life. The difference, say asexual people, is that they don’t yearn for something they have never experienced, any more than most people are upset by their lack of wings or gills. asexuality.org
