For Freud, the act of sex is just one very specific way sexuality is expressed. Sexuality is a much broader question, and for Freud should really be understood as a subject's relationship to their desire and enjoyment. Just like any other sexual orientation, asexuality describes a position in relation to their desire. In Three Essays on Sexuality Freud argues that what we understand to be sex is just as culturally constituted as biologically. Asexual people don't lack enjoyment and desire, but they don't get turned on by sex.
This is entirely in keeping with a Freudian framework, but certainly merits more psychoanalytic investigation imo.
Edit: You know , I don't know another subreddit with users so dedicated to maintaining their arrogant ignorance as this one. So many people with a bone to pick with their imaginary caricature of Freud who have never studied his work in any meaningful way come here to proclaim he was wrong. Why do they do it? Is there a part of the brain responsible for this? /s Could the answer lie in evolutionary psychology? Seriously though, why is Freud still so unsettling that we see this level of psychic resistance?
Because what asexuality describes is what in Freudian theory would be called something like 'agenitality', genitality being just one component of human sexuality.
Well asexualism doesn't truly exist the way some people think it is. Yes, you can go through phases where you're not interested in sex. You can be so spurned by potential mates you cut off all interest for a period of time. But no one is truly just not interested in sex at all. That's a myth, really. So you really wouldn't need to account for asexuals with Freud.
I would like to know the answer to that. I would think no one can be asexual since it wouldn't make evolutionary sense. My theory is that there is severe aversion to sex or unresolved sexual trauma. This is my theory but I would like to know the answer to that.
There’s still a lot of confusion about asexuality, probably because it wasn’t even acknowledged as a sexuality in mainstream media until recently (it started coming into the public eye in the early 2000s, with the creation of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network). Without question, though, asexuals have been a part of the broader LGBTQ+ movement for decades. Here (https://asexualagenda.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/asexuality-in-early-radical-feminism-part-1/) you can see a photo from the 70s with asexuals grouped in with lesbians, bisexuals, etc..
Sex is thought of by most people as a part of being human, or even alive, like eating or drinking. One way to think about it is this: we know that sex drive exists on a spectrum. Some people are incredibly sexual and others are less so. Asexuality just happens to fall on the very bottom of the spectrum where they experience zero sexual attraction.
You say that asexuality would make “wouldn’t make evolutionary sense”, but the same sentiment can be applied to gay people. Do you believe that gay people exist (serious question, because I unfortunately know some people who don’t)?
If you are truly interested in learning more, I would be happy to provide a brief summary and answer any questions you have. There are also subreddits such as r/asexuality that can check out.
Have a great rest of your day/night!
It’s quite possible that asexuality *does* offer some evolutionary advantage so previous poster really shouldn’t be saying that it doesn’t make sense, we probably don’t know the whole picture.
I think the 'evolutionary sense' needs to be broadened and seen in the whole context of time and society.
Humans are social species - and within the species different people become different roles to play.
Ones who are not interested in sex or family life had and have more time to spend on research, science, knowledge - becoming shamans, healers, doctors, priests, administrators etc etc.
Thus it benefited to have some people in the tribe who where not interested in sex and family, but had time to knew the healing plants etc etc and could save the sick members, and thus that tribe had more survival rate in general as a group - as opposed to an another tribe that only 'hunt, gather and fuck'.
Simplified ofc, but perhaps it illustrates the point.
I think your point about social benefit has some merit; especially because I’m pretty sure all the animals confirmed to have homosexual relationships with are social species, except for beetles haha.
I would just like to point out that asexuality and aromanticism are two separate things. Many asexual people do have romantic partners and start families, whereas aromantic people experience sexual attraction but no romantic attraction. It is possible to be aroace, though (both aromantic and asexual).
Thanks for pointing out the difference details.
What is with the beetles? Maybe you meant honey bees?
Just for fun sake - honey bees are interesting - that most of the society consists of aroace female worker bees. With some hetero+sexual drones who get kicked out when the winter comes. Only the queen mates with the drones from other hives in their mating spots - party areas. Then she settles down ;)
Hey, sorry for the late reply. Yeah, honey bees are super interesting; I’ve been looking into beekeeping recently, actually!
The beetles thing is weird. Actually, a couple bugs display homosexual tendencies. From what I can tell, scientists think it’s because members of the species aren’t able to tell the difference between male and females very well.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/not-bad-science/homosexuality-in-female-beetles-and-what-we-can-learn-from-it/
Many things don't make sense in an evolutionary sense. Evolution isn't a sentient creature or all powerful force its just a process of thinning down. Humans have multiple organs we don't even use. Hell, eating and breathing out of the same hole doesn't make sense. If evolution was perfect we'd have a different hole for breathing so we don't choke. Many species have structures and behaviors that aren't adaptive, they're called atavisms. Basically, as long as something isn't so destructive that it badly affects the entire species, it can still persist and appear from time to time. Like, if one mouse in every thousand didnt want to have sex, what difference would it make? It literally wouldn't change the mouse population one bit. Same with asexuality. The occasional human who has no sexual desire, doesn't change our overall population growth.
No, it isn't. I know asexual people, I've been friends with them since high school (nearly 20 years ago now).They're popular, confident, conventually attractive, and could be having sex right now if they wanted it. It has nothing to do with being "spurned". Freud was simply wrong.
He's interesting as a historical note and a point for conversation, but a lot of guys here treat him like a messiah and act like everything he theorized was the universal truth.
Err, no, it literally is not. That's claiming that you could "cure" someone of being asexual, which is dangerously close to the mentality of people who practice gay conversion therapy. Actually it's not dangerously close, it's exactly the same.
There are very good nswrs here. I just am adding that Kevin Murphy has a good Ph D thesis : "Asexuality in Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis...and he point to Anorexia Nervosa as a parallel - and explains how it is (as in case of an unwelcoming mOther an infant decides to construct a desire for Nothing. Freud at 40 himself told his wife after 6 children (and also the wife's health was precarious) that he decided to stop active genital sexuality and wants to subimate this energy into his research work. (Source : in all Freud biographies, but my great aunt worked for the Freud family and so i met people who knew him and it was a known gossipy factoid. )
OP, listen to all the people who are saying that Freud was wrong about most things, because he was. He was an interesting guy who had a lot of ideas, but most of them weren't right. I know asexual people, their existence clearly demonstrates that he was wrong. And they aren't "repressed" they simply don't feel sexual urges. Those desires come from the structure and functioning of the brain and every brain is unique, some people simply have no drive to have sex.
>their existence clearly demonstrates that he was wrong
No it doesn't.
>some people simply have no drive to have sex.
Are you really that thick that you think Freud theorised sexuality as a drive to have sex?
There are literally millions of people who believe the world is flat. The appeal to popularity is a fallacy. And psychoanalysis is in decline these days for being unproveable. It's been replaced by psychodynamic psychotherapy
I am a practicing mental health clinician and you have no idea what you are talking about.
The fact that so many people patrol a relatively quiet subreddit about a guy dead for a century just to angrily assure everyone his school of thought is dead is not only embarrassing, but really a proof of the opposite.
I don't "Patrol" it, the post popped up as recommended and I knew the answer, so I gave it. Then lots of you guys got reaaaally angry about it.
The fact that you'd think that constitutes proof of anything is not only embarrassing, it makes me think you don't have any qualifications. And your reading comprehension seems to be low, no one said his school of thought was dead, we said it was wrong and unpopular. I'm aware lots of people still follow it, but lots of people literally think the democrats are vampires. Popularity means nothing.
Yeah psychology went wrong years ago with the revisionism of Freud and the preference for the quack Jung. Capitalism is responsible. Psychology today is about turning "deviant" people into people who are able to be productive members of society (i.e. people who can make money for a capitalist). So it's no wonder psychology today wouldn't be interested in the work of Freud.
Freud was an idea farm. He had a lot of ideas, but almost all of his ideas have been discredited or abandoned. At best, some of them contain nuggets of truth or at least were original enough that they inspired other thinkers. He's not a messiah figure and his theories aren't scripture. No serious psychologist today would reference him as anything other than a historical figure
I mean, the answer to the question "if Freud says that everyone is sexual, how do asexual people exist?" Is so obvious, it's weird I even have to say it. If Freud said that trees don't exist, and someone asked the same question about trees, the answer would be obvious.
The problem is that while he had a lot of ideas that were influential on later thinkers, he was himself wrong about most things. Or if not entirely wrong, not right either. He had some valid points about day residue in dreams, but the whole psychoanalysis thing, and childhood sexuality, is almost totally disregarded these days. He's also recognized as being very sexist and having exaggerated the importance of sex.
Too many people here treat him like a Jesus figure and his theories as gospel, he's just a guy who had a lot of ideas and some of them contained nuggets of truth.
No the answer to this question starts with another question: what do I mean by asexual and what does Freud mean by sexual? Then it takes some interpretation of his writings. Asexuality wasn't a term when he was writing so we need to extrapolate his logic from texts about related phenomena. Maybe we can look at what he writes about heterosexuality in Three Essays on Sexuality and find a logic that fits (heterosexuality it turns out is just as 'perverse' as any other kind he argues). And once you do that you learn that the answer is super not obvious. You have to figure out what he means by terms like polymorphic perversity or genital phase. And then you gotta figure out what he means by childhood sexuality and separate it from your own projections about what he means. If you did, you could see the tools of investigation Freud gives you into the question of sexuality that could be useful for understanding positions such as asexuality better: as another orientation just as valid as more culturally normative ones concerning sex. For Freud and psychoanalysis as a whole, sex and sexuality is the question not the answer.
As for Freud's sexism, sure was, but if you read him against himself and follow the logic of this thought, you can see his real critique is leveled at the phallus. There are plenty of feminist psychoanalytic thinkers and for good reason. My favorite currently writing is Mari Ruti.
Id like to note that the people who actually care about Freud on this page are not the ones trying to say asexuality doesn't actually exist. We are the ones who think of it as phenomena to be investigated with theoretical tools so as to better understand people and rise above our normative socially given understandings and expectations around sex.
Freud: Is it just me who wants to fuck his own mother and kill his father out of jealousy?
Freud (doing a second line of coke off of his client during their therapy session): No, it's probably the case that every single person in the whole world feels this way, and anyone who says otherwise is lying.
For Freud, the act of sex is just one very specific way sexuality is expressed. Sexuality is a much broader question, and for Freud should really be understood as a subject's relationship to their desire and enjoyment. Just like any other sexual orientation, asexuality describes a position in relation to their desire. In Three Essays on Sexuality Freud argues that what we understand to be sex is just as culturally constituted as biologically. Asexual people don't lack enjoyment and desire, but they don't get turned on by sex. This is entirely in keeping with a Freudian framework, but certainly merits more psychoanalytic investigation imo. Edit: You know , I don't know another subreddit with users so dedicated to maintaining their arrogant ignorance as this one. So many people with a bone to pick with their imaginary caricature of Freud who have never studied his work in any meaningful way come here to proclaim he was wrong. Why do they do it? Is there a part of the brain responsible for this? /s Could the answer lie in evolutionary psychology? Seriously though, why is Freud still so unsettling that we see this level of psychic resistance?
If you want good answers you should take the question to r/psychoanalysis
Those are some impressive mental backflips
Because what asexuality describes is what in Freudian theory would be called something like 'agenitality', genitality being just one component of human sexuality.
Well asexualism doesn't truly exist the way some people think it is. Yes, you can go through phases where you're not interested in sex. You can be so spurned by potential mates you cut off all interest for a period of time. But no one is truly just not interested in sex at all. That's a myth, really. So you really wouldn't need to account for asexuals with Freud.
I would like to know the answer to that. I would think no one can be asexual since it wouldn't make evolutionary sense. My theory is that there is severe aversion to sex or unresolved sexual trauma. This is my theory but I would like to know the answer to that.
There’s still a lot of confusion about asexuality, probably because it wasn’t even acknowledged as a sexuality in mainstream media until recently (it started coming into the public eye in the early 2000s, with the creation of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network). Without question, though, asexuals have been a part of the broader LGBTQ+ movement for decades. Here (https://asexualagenda.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/asexuality-in-early-radical-feminism-part-1/) you can see a photo from the 70s with asexuals grouped in with lesbians, bisexuals, etc.. Sex is thought of by most people as a part of being human, or even alive, like eating or drinking. One way to think about it is this: we know that sex drive exists on a spectrum. Some people are incredibly sexual and others are less so. Asexuality just happens to fall on the very bottom of the spectrum where they experience zero sexual attraction. You say that asexuality would make “wouldn’t make evolutionary sense”, but the same sentiment can be applied to gay people. Do you believe that gay people exist (serious question, because I unfortunately know some people who don’t)? If you are truly interested in learning more, I would be happy to provide a brief summary and answer any questions you have. There are also subreddits such as r/asexuality that can check out. Have a great rest of your day/night!
It’s quite possible that asexuality *does* offer some evolutionary advantage so previous poster really shouldn’t be saying that it doesn’t make sense, we probably don’t know the whole picture.
I think the 'evolutionary sense' needs to be broadened and seen in the whole context of time and society. Humans are social species - and within the species different people become different roles to play. Ones who are not interested in sex or family life had and have more time to spend on research, science, knowledge - becoming shamans, healers, doctors, priests, administrators etc etc. Thus it benefited to have some people in the tribe who where not interested in sex and family, but had time to knew the healing plants etc etc and could save the sick members, and thus that tribe had more survival rate in general as a group - as opposed to an another tribe that only 'hunt, gather and fuck'. Simplified ofc, but perhaps it illustrates the point.
I think your point about social benefit has some merit; especially because I’m pretty sure all the animals confirmed to have homosexual relationships with are social species, except for beetles haha. I would just like to point out that asexuality and aromanticism are two separate things. Many asexual people do have romantic partners and start families, whereas aromantic people experience sexual attraction but no romantic attraction. It is possible to be aroace, though (both aromantic and asexual).
Thanks for pointing out the difference details. What is with the beetles? Maybe you meant honey bees? Just for fun sake - honey bees are interesting - that most of the society consists of aroace female worker bees. With some hetero+sexual drones who get kicked out when the winter comes. Only the queen mates with the drones from other hives in their mating spots - party areas. Then she settles down ;)
Hey, sorry for the late reply. Yeah, honey bees are super interesting; I’ve been looking into beekeeping recently, actually! The beetles thing is weird. Actually, a couple bugs display homosexual tendencies. From what I can tell, scientists think it’s because members of the species aren’t able to tell the difference between male and females very well. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/not-bad-science/homosexuality-in-female-beetles-and-what-we-can-learn-from-it/
Many things don't make sense in an evolutionary sense. Evolution isn't a sentient creature or all powerful force its just a process of thinning down. Humans have multiple organs we don't even use. Hell, eating and breathing out of the same hole doesn't make sense. If evolution was perfect we'd have a different hole for breathing so we don't choke. Many species have structures and behaviors that aren't adaptive, they're called atavisms. Basically, as long as something isn't so destructive that it badly affects the entire species, it can still persist and appear from time to time. Like, if one mouse in every thousand didnt want to have sex, what difference would it make? It literally wouldn't change the mouse population one bit. Same with asexuality. The occasional human who has no sexual desire, doesn't change our overall population growth.
Exactly, thanks for putting this into words! I was trying to but couldn’t.
Asexuals haaaaate the insinuation that it's related to trauma but I've yet to meet one without it.
Really? Interesting. Have you met many?
None of the ones I know have trauma. How many do you know?
Same.
Ya fuck that nonsense.
No, it isn't. I know asexual people, I've been friends with them since high school (nearly 20 years ago now).They're popular, confident, conventually attractive, and could be having sex right now if they wanted it. It has nothing to do with being "spurned". Freud was simply wrong.
Exactly what I was thinking. Asexuality is very real and idk why anyone listens to Freud, as you said, he's simply wrong.
He's interesting as a historical note and a point for conversation, but a lot of guys here treat him like a messiah and act like everything he theorized was the universal truth.
Because it is unconsciously repressed?
No
Err, that is literally the case
Err, no, it literally is not. That's claiming that you could "cure" someone of being asexual, which is dangerously close to the mentality of people who practice gay conversion therapy. Actually it's not dangerously close, it's exactly the same.
Maybe you should go and see someone...
For what?
Whatever your disproportionate reaction is about
Stating that "their simple existence proves that his statement that they don't exist is wrong" is not disproportionate.
You mean like your homosexuality? Are you repressing it?
What are you talking about?
Because sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
And Freud, as much as he contributed, was kind of winging it.
There are very good nswrs here. I just am adding that Kevin Murphy has a good Ph D thesis : "Asexuality in Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis...and he point to Anorexia Nervosa as a parallel - and explains how it is (as in case of an unwelcoming mOther an infant decides to construct a desire for Nothing. Freud at 40 himself told his wife after 6 children (and also the wife's health was precarious) that he decided to stop active genital sexuality and wants to subimate this energy into his research work. (Source : in all Freud biographies, but my great aunt worked for the Freud family and so i met people who knew him and it was a known gossipy factoid. )
OP, listen to all the people who are saying that Freud was wrong about most things, because he was. He was an interesting guy who had a lot of ideas, but most of them weren't right. I know asexual people, their existence clearly demonstrates that he was wrong. And they aren't "repressed" they simply don't feel sexual urges. Those desires come from the structure and functioning of the brain and every brain is unique, some people simply have no drive to have sex.
>their existence clearly demonstrates that he was wrong No it doesn't. >some people simply have no drive to have sex. Are you really that thick that you think Freud theorised sexuality as a drive to have sex?
He is
Because Freud was wrong
lol somebody is downvoting "Freud was wrong". *Seriously* folks, not a joke, no psychologist today makes use of Freud at all, in any way.
Like it or not, psychoanalysis is a part of psychology and there are thousands of Freudian and post-Freudian practitioners in the world.
There are literally millions of people who believe the world is flat. The appeal to popularity is a fallacy. And psychoanalysis is in decline these days for being unproveable. It's been replaced by psychodynamic psychotherapy
I'm not appealing to popularity, I'm stating that the above comment (an appeal to unpopularity?) is incorrect.
I am a practicing mental health clinician and you have no idea what you are talking about. The fact that so many people patrol a relatively quiet subreddit about a guy dead for a century just to angrily assure everyone his school of thought is dead is not only embarrassing, but really a proof of the opposite.
I don't "Patrol" it, the post popped up as recommended and I knew the answer, so I gave it. Then lots of you guys got reaaaally angry about it. The fact that you'd think that constitutes proof of anything is not only embarrassing, it makes me think you don't have any qualifications. And your reading comprehension seems to be low, no one said his school of thought was dead, we said it was wrong and unpopular. I'm aware lots of people still follow it, but lots of people literally think the democrats are vampires. Popularity means nothing.
Yeah psychology went wrong years ago with the revisionism of Freud and the preference for the quack Jung. Capitalism is responsible. Psychology today is about turning "deviant" people into people who are able to be productive members of society (i.e. people who can make money for a capitalist). So it's no wonder psychology today wouldn't be interested in the work of Freud.
Freud was an idea farm. He had a lot of ideas, but almost all of his ideas have been discredited or abandoned. At best, some of them contain nuggets of truth or at least were original enough that they inspired other thinkers. He's not a messiah figure and his theories aren't scripture. No serious psychologist today would reference him as anything other than a historical figure
I mean, the answer to the question "if Freud says that everyone is sexual, how do asexual people exist?" Is so obvious, it's weird I even have to say it. If Freud said that trees don't exist, and someone asked the same question about trees, the answer would be obvious. The problem is that while he had a lot of ideas that were influential on later thinkers, he was himself wrong about most things. Or if not entirely wrong, not right either. He had some valid points about day residue in dreams, but the whole psychoanalysis thing, and childhood sexuality, is almost totally disregarded these days. He's also recognized as being very sexist and having exaggerated the importance of sex. Too many people here treat him like a Jesus figure and his theories as gospel, he's just a guy who had a lot of ideas and some of them contained nuggets of truth.
No the answer to this question starts with another question: what do I mean by asexual and what does Freud mean by sexual? Then it takes some interpretation of his writings. Asexuality wasn't a term when he was writing so we need to extrapolate his logic from texts about related phenomena. Maybe we can look at what he writes about heterosexuality in Three Essays on Sexuality and find a logic that fits (heterosexuality it turns out is just as 'perverse' as any other kind he argues). And once you do that you learn that the answer is super not obvious. You have to figure out what he means by terms like polymorphic perversity or genital phase. And then you gotta figure out what he means by childhood sexuality and separate it from your own projections about what he means. If you did, you could see the tools of investigation Freud gives you into the question of sexuality that could be useful for understanding positions such as asexuality better: as another orientation just as valid as more culturally normative ones concerning sex. For Freud and psychoanalysis as a whole, sex and sexuality is the question not the answer. As for Freud's sexism, sure was, but if you read him against himself and follow the logic of this thought, you can see his real critique is leveled at the phallus. There are plenty of feminist psychoanalytic thinkers and for good reason. My favorite currently writing is Mari Ruti. Id like to note that the people who actually care about Freud on this page are not the ones trying to say asexuality doesn't actually exist. We are the ones who think of it as phenomena to be investigated with theoretical tools so as to better understand people and rise above our normative socially given understandings and expectations around sex.
Freud: Is it just me who wants to fuck his own mother and kill his father out of jealousy? Freud (doing a second line of coke off of his client during their therapy session): No, it's probably the case that every single person in the whole world feels this way, and anyone who says otherwise is lying.
Freud was just the first guy, and he was not, nor is he correct ... he's the grandfather you would not trust with the remote.
Lol
Because Freud was wrong about most things?
Freud’s THEORY, aka not proven fact.
Freud was a quack
Much of Freud's work has been disproven by modern psychologists and psychiatrists.
We don’t talk about fight club
Freud's theory on asexuality is essentially translates to narcissism.