Antisexualism
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Antisexualism is a term that describes either,
- the views of someone who is antagonistic towards sexuality;
- or a movement against all forms of sexuality.
People involved in, and proponents of, the movement may be described as "antisexual". In pre-modern times, antisexualism was usually expressed in religious terms, but it now also occurs as a secular social reform agenda. Most antisexual people believe that sexuality is a kind of addiction resulting in both physical and social effects, that it disrupts relationships, and causes people to lie and cheat to achieve the pleasure of sexual gratification. An antisexual person who refuses to have sex is considered to be a celibate or an antisexual celibate, and is not necessarily asexual. Some antisexual people believe sexuality to be the cause of many of the world's problems. Antisexuals can also be opposed to the idea of romantic love, with some describing it as an "addiction to a person". [1]
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[edit] Reasons for antisexualism
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The Antisexual movement is a movement where people unite in groups to support each other, discuss and promote antisexualism as a way of life. Antisexuals are not necessarily asexual, but the reasons for their antisexuality are based on their reasoning or morals. A few of the claims some antisexuals make include:
- Sexuality can complicate relationships (as when people are hostile towards each other because they are sexually attracted to the same person).
- Sex may hinder one's spiritual development (example of a non-secular argument).
- Sexual desire can cause people to place primitive instinct ahead of intellect (people across the world continue to have unsafe casual sex despite their awareness of the dangers of STDs, for example).
- Sexuality asserts itself in the human mind by releasing neurochemicals comparable to addictive drugs into the brain.
- Sexual desire can cause people to lie and cheat in the pursuit of sexual relationships.
- Sexuality can lead to discrimination, based on perceptions of sexual immorality and intolerance of certain sexual preferences (Homophobia, for instance).
- Sexual desires could be false assumptions that are foisted on you by society, hence you may need to look at how your sexuality is ideologically and institutionally constructed.
- Some opponents of lookism, a recently documented form of discrimination, along with some proponents of fat acceptance, argue that sexuality, which is usually based on notion of physical attractiveness, encourages and justifies obliviousness to the unfairness of discrimination against people who are deemed unattractive by others.
- Some (but not all) antisexualists make no distinction between consent and coercion, seeing sex as a means of oppression.
- Some antisexualists see a link between unrestricted reproduction, resource depletion and environmental decay. This is a position ideologically connected to deep ecology.
- Some antisexualists argue that certain mother-roles are a construct used to subjugate women, hence they oppose procreation. This argument chimes with certain feminist and queer theories (lesbian and Green feminism), but not others.
- Some antisexualists see family as a harmful entity for society, which is similar to some radical left wing theories that see the family as an extension of an opressive state.
[edit] Famous antisexualists
- John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of cornflakes, was opposed to all forms of sexual activity, especially masturbation.
- Ann Lee, the founder of the Shakers, a radical Protestant sect that opposed procreation and all sexual activity.
- The Skoptzys, a radical sect of the Russian Orthodox Church who practiced castration and breast mutilation on females. They opposed procreation for reasons similar to the Protestant Shaker movement.
- Some forms of early ascetic Gnosticism held all matter to be evil, and that unnecessary gratifications of the physical senses were to be avoided. Married couples were encouraged to be celibate (see Book of Thomas the Contender, Acts of Thomas; also Spiritual marriage).
- Origen and Boston Corbett were reported to have castrated themselves.
[edit] In fiction
- The Junior Anti-Sex League in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was a group of young adult Party members devoted to banning all sexual intercourse, and replacing its procreative functions with the use of artificial insemination (children would be raised in public institutions, rather than in individual families). Though the League was founded and countenanced by the all-powerful totalitarian Party, the Party leadership did not allow it to succeed in its goals. However, the existence of the League served as an important public reminder of the Party's disapproval of all attachments and activities which could diminish exclusive loyalty to the Party, and that everything other than "normal intercourse between man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children, and without physical pleasure on the part of the woman" was forbidden sexcrime which could be punished by death.
- In Jorge Luis Borges' Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius it is said that one of the heresiarchs of Uqbar had declared that mirrors and copulation are abominable, because they increase the number of men.
[edit] See also
- Asexuality
- Sexual abstinence
- Celibacy
- Erotophobia
- Erotophilia
- Sex-negativity
- Sex-positive
- Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
