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Asexuality Is Finally Breaking Free from Medical Stigma (www.scientificamerican.com)

submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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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.

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[-] Nefara@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 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.