Talk:Asexuality

Recent additions

Englike, I reverted you here. This is because the quote, if it is to remain, should have WP:In-text attribution. Read WP:In-text attribution. I also reverted you because the "The first online asexual community may be the comments section of an article" material you added is WP:Original research and this source you added for it does not count as a WP:Reliable source. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:26, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn but you’ve removed real facts: 1) Haven for the Human Amoeba (HHA); 2) “Official Asexual Society” by Geraldin van Vilsteren; 3) the emergence of a small community of asexual women in 1997 (Leather Spinsters Newsletter). BTW, these facts are mentioned in de:Asexualität#Gemeinschaft and nobody removes them. I appreciate David Jay’s contribution to the expansion and strengthening of the world asexual community, but your article presents AVEN as the first asexual website which arose like Minerva appearing out of Jupiter’s head in full armour. Asexual communities that arose earlier than AVEN are not taken into account. AVEN did not take shape in a vacuum of course. There were some premisses for its appearance already. And it would be highly unhistorical to ignore its predecessors, e.g. HHA and the Nonlibidoism Society. Besides, I don’t understand what makes you remove books. Rle Eng’s book “Leather Spinsters and Their Degrees of Asexuality” is evidence that there really was an asexual female community which “Leather Spinsters Newsletter” was referred to. Vilsteren’s book “Nonlibidoism: The Short Facts” (United Kingdom, 04 Jun 2011 ISBN 1447575555) is cited by Jonathan Metzl (notable, see The Protest Psychosis) in his book “Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality” (NYU Press, 2010 ISBN 0814795935, p. 167, chapter “How Much Sex Is Healthy? The Pleasures of Asexuality”). Her book L'amour sans le faire : Comment vivre sans libido dans un monde où le sexe est partout ? (2005) is a bestseller in France and is listed in frwiki: fr:Asexualité#Bibliographie. I’m not engaged in WP:Original research. I adduce real facts and submit books for further reading. --Englike (talk) 17:25, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Englike, there is no need to WP:Ping me to this page. This page is on my watchlist. Except for the source you used for the quote (which, again, should have in-text attribution if we are to include it), the sources you added are poor, and regarding the non-English ones, I can't even judge them because I can't read them. But given the WP:Original research you added, I am not inclined to trust what you added based on the non-English sources either. You did engage in WP:Original research, more specifically the WP:Synthesis portion of that policy. WP:Synthesis means adding things not explicitly supported by the sources. You added "The first online asexual community may be the comments section of an article" material. You added this based on the dispatches.azstarnet.com source, but this source does not state that. Instead, it's you using that source to speculate. You also pointed to the comments section of the source, as if that counts as reliable in any way. Comments on a forum are not WP:Reliable sources. Do read the Wikipedia rules I am pointing you to. Beyond that, I do not think that the content you added needs to be there, but if you can provide WP:Reliable/WP:Secondary English sources supporting that material, I wouldn't oppose its inclusion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:34, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

As for the quotation "One of the most important differences between asexuality and HSDD etc." I agree that it isn't necessary. Of course, this proposition is not simply a statement of an empirically obvious fact, but a theoretical formulation of a certain conclusion made by a group of research workers whose point of view is largely debatable. You're right here. But I can't agree with you on other points. I think the first quotation from "Asexuality and Sexual Normativity: An Anthology" ("There is presently no academic work on the history of the asexual community") should not be removed because it provides a correct idea of the contemporary state of the question which constitutes the subject-matter of the section "Community." As for WP:OR, I didn't say "the first community WAS." I said: "the first community MAY BE." Well, we can re-formulate: "On-line asexual communities were already arising at the dawn of the Internet." Ok? Such an assertion is not OR because it is simply a statement of a real fact and can be substantiated by the existence of the Leather Spinster movement, HHA, and Vilsteren's website. It is well known that forums are not WP:Reliable sources, but here these websites are drawn to express the evidence available and are therefore only empirical facts rather than reliable sources of information. In other words, I'm merely pointing out that these websites (asexual communities) really existed. This fact warns the reader against a deceptive impression of AVEN as the sole asexual community that has ever existed in history. To my mind, your article (I know that it is you who has converted this article into a good one) has the disadvantage that it does not take into account the prehistory of AVEN. Your survey of on-line asexual communities is reduced to a description of AVEN. The reader is given the impression that there were no other asexual communities at all. It is an oversimplification distorting David Jay's real place in the moulding of the world asexual community. (P.S. The article about Balzac should not be removed on the grounds that you don't speak French.) --Englike (talk) 18:10, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't objecting to your "There is presently no academic work on the history of the asexual community." sentence that is based on the "Asexuality and Sexual Normativity: An Anthology" source, although, per WP:Copyvio, you probably should have changed the wording. Using the wording "No academic work on the history of the asexual community exists." would work in its place. But I feel that it may be confusing for readers to include that line and then continue with "A community of self-identified asexuals coalesced in the early 21st century, aided by the popularity of online communities.", and other stuff about the history of the community. As for the rest, I explained why I reverted you. Even stating "the first community may be" with the sources you included was WP:Synthesis. As for "On-line asexual communities were already arising at the dawn of the Internet.", I would change that wording to be more encyclopedic, but, per WP:OR, I wouldn't add it without a reliable source directly supporting it.

As for your statement that "The article about Balzac should not be removed on the grounds that [I] don't speak French.", that is not the same thing at all. That article is written in English. That's because this is the English Wikipedia. In addition to our text primarily being written in English, Wikipedia prefers English-language sources. And like I stated, given the WP:OR you have engaged in, I have valid reason to not trust the material you are adding based on non-English sources. If you continue to argue for your additions (and I don't mean the material sourced to "Asexuality and Sexual Normativity: An Anthology"), we should take this matter to the WP:Original research noticeboard. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:19, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

As for your wording "No academic work on the history of the asexual community exists," I think we are to put it in a more academic way. "Le style c’est l’homme" (Buffon). --Englike (talk) 06:18, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, there is nothing to do, but accept the fact that the section "Gemeinschaft" (community) in the German article is little more than WP:Copyvio. Cf.:

In den 1990er Jahren waren im Internet die ersten privaten Seiten zu finden, auf denen Menschen bekannten, kein oder nur wenig sexuelles Verlangen zu haben. Gruppen wie die Leather Spinsters (Lederne Jungfern) setzten sich gegen den kulturellen Druck für ein sexloses Leben ein.[12] Die niederländische Theater- und Filmstudentin Geraldine Joosten van Vilsteren gründete das Forum Nonlibidoism[13] und Yahoo offerierte das Forum Haven for the Human Amoeba. // de:Asexualität#Gemeinschaft

In den 1990er Jahren waren im Internet die ersten privaten Seiten zu bestaunen, auf denen Menschen bekannten, kein sexuelles Verlangen zu haben oder nur ein sehr geringes. Gruppen wie die Leather Spinsters (Lederne Jungfern) setzten sich gegen den kulturellen Druck für ein sexloses Leben ein. In den Niederlanden gründete Geraldin van Vilsteren das »Nonlibidoism«-Forum, und Yahoo offerierte das Forum »The Haven for the Human Amoeba« // Volkmar Sigusch. "Sexualitäten: Eine kritische Theorie in 99 Fragmenten". Campus Verlag, 2013. S. 485.

I've added this quotation from Volkmar Sigusch's book to confirm my assertion that on-line asexual communities emerged in the twentieth century. Now we have to re-examine the result of your own WP:Original research which you're striving hard to advocate, viz., "A community of self-identified asexuals coalesced in the early 21st century, aided by the popularity of online communities." Grüße, --Englike (talk) 12:41, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

This is still WP:OR. The statement that "The first asexual websites arose in the 1990s." is not supported by this leatherspinsters.com source. And leatherspinsters.com is not a WP:Reliable source. No, despite your "let it be a reliable source" edit summary, we are not going to let it be a WP:Reliable source; we are going to follow the WP:Reliable sources guideline as to what a reliable source is in Wikipedia's terms.

As for your WP:Other stuff exists argument, a block quote is usually not a WP:Copyvio issue, not unless too much of the text is quoted. When a quote is attributed to the author using WP:In-text attribution, that is proper. When a quote is presented in Wikipedia's voice, with or without quote marks, but especially without quote marks, as though it is the Wikipedia editor's own words, that is a WP:Copyvio issue.

As for your comment about the "A community of self-identified asexuals coalesced in the early 21st century, aided by the popularity of online communities." line, I did not add that. And I am not striving hard to advocate a thing. Do read WP:Advocacy. From what I see, you are doing the advocating. I am following Wikipeda's rules. The line you claimed as OR was easily supported by two scholarly book sources added by me. And as you can see, those sources use the words "at the cusp of the twenty-first century," "at the dawn of the twenty-first century," "in the early 21st century" when it comes to the formation of the asexual community. You have provided no WP:Reliable sources stating that the asexual community formed before that point, or specifically in the 1990s.

And as for quoting French material, you should be translating it into English for me, per WP:Non-English sources, if you want me to trust your material. Not the whole thing, but parts that specifically support whatever wording you want to add. If the sources do not have text that supports your wording, it is WP:OR and will not be added. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:14, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I see that you've taken the matter to the WP:Original research noticeboard. I'll comment there. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:11, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Even though Wikis are not considered reliable sources you probably should have a look at the Aven Wiki in this case:

http://wiki.asexuality.org/Asexual_history

http://wiki.asexuality.org/Haven_for_the_Human_Amoeba

David Jay was likely active in the Yahoo Group "Haven for the Human Amobea" before he founded Aven. The "Official Nonlibidoist Society" was named "Official Asexual Society" at first and later changed the name because they believed the term Asexuality had become "tainted" by the more inclusive definition proposed by Aven. That change of name could have been confirmed via Wayback machine until recently but it seems the site owner changed and removed the information from wayback machine.

The problem with sources on history is that basically all modern sources such as Sigusch heavily rely on information they got from Aven. Some of those sources even copied the information from newspaper articles by journalists who had copied the information from Aven before. So citing those sources doesn't make any sense in terms of accuracy. --MightyMaz (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:25, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

@MightyMaz: Of course, this revision of mine was nothing but the result of the "copy-and-paste" command, with the text being borrowed directly from http://wiki.asexuality.org/Asexual_history#Emergence_of_asexual_communities As Flyer22 was not happy with these borrowings, I decided to satisfy her and find a secondary source. It being difficult to find a source in English, I had to look for publications in other languages. French authors did not succeeded in satisfying Flyer, but she became quite happy with a German scientist. This being so, I'm very glad because I only wanted to add the above-mentioned websites to Flyer's article. To my mind, Frau Vilsteren is too prominent figure to be missing from an article about asexuality. To tell the truth, I'm surprised at the fact that Vilsteren has succeded in publishing and selling her book about "nonlibidoism" in France although Frenchmen are conspicuous for their amorous disposition. Despite this characteristic feature of the French people, many French journalists (among them Jean-Philippe de Tonnac and Peggy Sastre) publish books on asexuality. So French acquires immense importance in tackling the most essential problems of the theory of asexualuty. --Englike (talk) 08:11, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

(I'm German native speaker by the way and member of Aven since 2004). I understand that procedure is important in Wikipedia. However what Sigusch writes is quite a bit "off the mark". For example Geraldine's site was founded as "The Official Asexual Society" (and was a rather exquisite club. In order to join you had to answer a lot of questions to prove you were truly asexual/nonlibidoist) and Yahoo groups obviously weren't offered by Yahoo itself. I'm not much into Wikipedia's rules but I find it strange that quality of information shouldn't be valued higher than the "reliability" of a source in cases where the information is both important and books and (scientific) articles clearly rely on internet sources themselves. --MightyMaz (talk) 16:08, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

@MightyMaz: I've already guessed that you ain't a native speaker of English (e.g. your "copied THE information from newspaper" is evidence that English is not your first language). I think you'd better ask Flyer22 Reborn because I follow her instructions. I said above that my aim was not to describe these websites but to mention them in the article. Not until I cited Sigusch's monograph did Flyer permit me to introduce Geraldin van Vilsteren to our audience. I'm not defending the quality of information in scholarly publications relying on AVEN. I'm only defending the opinion that Vilsteren's activity including her books on "nonlibidoism" is worth noting. Ich bin nur für Fräulein Vilsteren eingetreten. No sex, please! Wenn du kein sexuelles Verlangen hast, so neide ich dir. Grüße, Englike (talk) 18:10, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I forgot information is uncountable in English. Strangely enough you can still cut it to pieces of information. ("beneide ich dich darum" wäre übrigens besser als "neide ich (es) dir")  ;-) --MightyMaz (talk) 21:31, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

This thread on apostive also contains some interesting historical information about Geraldine's site. http://www.apositive.org/viewtopic.php?t=448 --MightyMaz (talk) 16:33, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Danke schön! --Englike (talk) 18:10, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Gern geschehen! --MightyMaz (talk) 21:31, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Objecting to the content had nothing to do with sources being French or German, other than accessibility issues, per WP:Non-English. My main concerns were what I stated above and what I stated at the WP:Original research noticeboard. I'm not "quite happy" with the Sigusch material; this is because it's one source and I see no others supporting the statement except for the "Leather Spinsters" aspect. So, like I noted at the WP:Original research noticeboard, the Sigusch material could very well be argued as WP:Undue. Either way, including it in the way that we have does make it clear that this is one author claiming all of that, while others focus on the "emergence during the 21 century" aspect and other things. So I'm not overly bothered by the inclusion. And, per WP:OWN, this is not my article, by the way. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:26, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

@MightyMaz: Many thanks for your correction of my proverbial style (aus dem Sprichwort "Wer neidet, der leidet"): "neide" --> "beneide" wäre besser. Yeah, I'm learning German, but I don't know it very well. I see you've undertaken a revision of the German article in accordance with this discussion. But there is a strong objection to your substituting the words "In den 1990er Jahren" by "Gegen Ende der 1990er Jahren." Unsere Fliegerin remarks apropos of that: "we can only go by what the sources state. ... If the sources state "1990s," then so must we. And in this case, the Sigusch source states "1990s." I think we are to take her approach because she has the rules of WP at her fingertips. Besides, several lines of evidence indicate that small asexual groups arose in the 1990s: I am an asexual person (12/17/90); I plan to die a virgin. ... If you are really asexual, you aren't crazy, you're just asexual (11/5/96) etc. --Englike (talk) 18:16, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

@Englike: If the text in the German article is not interpreted (and also rewritten) in a way such as that it only partially/loosely refers to Sigusch's newspaper article from 2011 (which seems to contain exactly the same information as the book you cite) it should probably be removed from the German article completely. Otherwise the whole paragraph is just c+p and on top of that from a low quality source. What Sigusch writes is more or less hearsay to me and he cites no sources himself. Also the German article doesn't contain much specific information and cannot be compared with the level of the English one. In it's current state personally I would greatly prefer to have more correct information in there over referring to proper sources by Wikipedia's rules. Stating facts like the one you mention above (old Newsgroup posts mentioning asexuality [which are no private sites however as Sigusch's statement would imply]) seems a much more reasonable approach to me than to cite secondary references that contain wrong or oversimplified information. So to put matters short personally I would remove the reference to Sigusch and just write about the facts. But I'm not going to attempt to rewrite the German article in this way. I haven't even got passives Sichterrecht in the German Wikipedia and every modification I make would take up to some days until it's accepted or rejected. So to be honest I don't really feel that much responsible for the quality of the German article besides having a proper definition of asexuality in it. Further discussion on that topic should probably take place in the discussion area of the German article now and I'm sure that every help with improving the German article will be appreciated in the German Wikipedia. --MightyMaz (talk) 19:53, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

History missing

I am missing the history section. Nihil novi sub sole: chastity, celibacy including Josephite marriage (who some mislabel as marriage of convenience, but bona fide asexuals resort(ed) to it), Hindu Brahmacarya as preached by Manusmriti, etc. - they all should be mentioned here. Maybe even the underlying biological explanation for the lack of sex drive due to the possibility of Asexual reproduction :).

I know that it reeks of WP:OR, but I guess some Asexuality researchers factored these in their publications. Zezen (talk) 07:53, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. There is barely any (documented) history of asexuality because, as the Wikipedia article makes clear, this is a relatively new area of research, spurred on by asexual communities sprouting up in the early 21st century. And, yes, we obviously can't add WP:OR. Asexual reproduction is a different matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:48, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Nice expansions

Katolophyromai, nice expansions. As for the Religion section you created, though, keep in mind that sexual abstinence and celibacy are not the same thing as asexuality. This is made clear in all three articles. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:48, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I know. I am actually working on revising it right now. I removed a few sentences that I added earlier because I was concerned they did not make this entirely clear. (By the way, I have found several sources dealing with Christian views on asexuality, but I am having troubles finding sources dealing with Jewish and Islamic views on asexuality; if you know of any, those might be helpful.) --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:52, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Okay. Also make sure to provide the page numbers for all of the book sources you added. I saw some without page numbers provided. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:56, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I am using the Google Books editions of these books and none of the pages in the Google Books version for Julie Sondra Decker's The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality are paginated, so I cannot provide any page numbers for it. I have, however, provided a link to the Google Books edition, which should open up to the pages I was using. The page numbers for all of the other sources are provided. --Katolophyromai (talk) 22:17, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Regarding this, the URL seems to indicate the page number (PT22). Sometimes the URL is wrong, but it's accurate more often than not. And you can trim the URL so that it stops at "PT22." I used to include the long string like you do, but I stopped after realizing that the long string isn't needed and only highlights the searched words. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:10, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

On side note: I wouldn't be surprised if some of the sources on religion are confusing sexual abstinence and celibacy with asexuality. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:58, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Not sure about using sources such as this asexualawarenessweek.com source and this vocationnetwork.org source. I don't think they fair well on the WP:Reliable sources scale. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:07, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I would not use either those sources to support any controversial factual statements, but I think that the way they are being used right now is acceptable, since they are being used in a discussion of societal views on the subject. (I removed the speculative bit about the Apostle Paul having possibly been asexual, which I could find no academic sources definitively supporting; I did find one that mentioned Paul in the context of asexuality, but it did not explicitly call him asexual.) --Katolophyromai (talk) 12:49, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Religion is always controversial. If what is stated by those sources is factual, it should be easy to find better sources supporting those claims. Using one of those poor sources, the section currently states, "Religious teachings on asexuality are often mixed and ambiguous." But given the relative newness of asexuality discourse, I don't think that there are any religious teachings on asexuality. The source is likely speaking of celibacy (which there are religious teachings on) since so many confuse celibacy with asexuality. As for the aforementioned removal, it leaves the Apostle Paul content there without any tie to asexuality. All that is currently left there for him is a celibacy mention and a statement reportedly made by him. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:10, 11 January 2018 (UTC)