NZHerald.co.nz – By Shelley Bridgeman
As a student at the University of Liverpool in the 80s, Chris Coles called himself asexual. It made sense to him. “I was studying biology,” he says. “And asexual organisms don’t have sex.”
But few people understood the term so, as a young man in his 20s, Coles described himself as celibate. When he hit his stroppy 30s, he would tell people he was frigid.
The confusion over just what label to use is only one of many challenges asexuals in our sex-obsessed society face. Of all the sexual minorities – homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, and those with proclivities for just about anything – asexuals have had a low public profile and a real sense of isolation. Now they are banding together in a bid for recognition, understanding and acceptance.
An asexual person is commonly defined as someone who experiences no sexual attraction towards other people. But some professionals think the term is somewhat imprecise.