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WAITING TO BE RECOGNIZED
waves again, this time with a
follow-up paper that not only debunked the idea that asexuality is
a medical condition like HSDD, but
that also positioned asexuality as a
sexual orientation in its own right.
Bogaert challenged society’s
“essentialist” position on sexual
orientation, casting doubt on the
idea that everyone is biologically
determined to feel sexually toward others. Human sexuality is
extremely complex, he argued, and
with the limited knowledge we
have about sexual orientation development, how do we know there
isn’t a biological predisposition to
a lack of sexual attraction?
Other researchers have since
corroborated Bogaert’s arguments
with studies of their own.
However, not all medical professionals have been quite so supportive of the asexual community’s calls for recognition. Jay says
there were some who reacted with
downright hostility when the DSM
campaign was first underway.
“We clashed with physicians
who thought that what we were
doing is dangerous,” he recalled.
“They said that we were advocating that it was OK to not be sexual. There was this really strong
ethos that sex is a vital part of the
HUFFINGTON
08.25.13
human experience and without it,
there’s something wrong.”
In 2005 Leonard Derogatis,
director of the Maryland Center
for Sexual Health at Johns Hopkins University, told The New
York Times it was hard for him
to see asexuals as “normal” human beings.
“It’s a bit like people saying
they never have an appetite for
food,” Derogatis said at the time.
A major challenge ace activists faced in working to redefine
HSDD, says Jay, was working to
Dr. Alfred
Kinsey,
founder of
the Institute
for Sex
Research
at Indiana
University,
is thought
to be one
of the first
scientists
to classify
asexuality.