Latest / Around the Kinky Kampfire Podcast / Untangling Attraction: A Journey Through Asexuality, Empathy, and Meaningful Connections | Pillow Fort Sessions EP24

Transcript

Untangling Attraction: A Journey Through Asexuality, Empathy, and Meaningful Connections | Pillow Fort Sessions EP24 · Around the Kinky Kampfire Podcast

• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Pillowfort Sessions of Around the Kinky Campfire.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: This is your host, el Comedien, who still can't spell Comedien for some reason.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not even going to look it up Because it's a nickname, aka Taco Knuckle.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I do know how to spell those ones, the Cuddle Gigolo or Julius, officially, hh Julius here as your entertainment creative, to give you more insight into a particular topic.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: As you know, in the Pillowfort Sessions I like to do a deep dive.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I've ranted.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I went to do things the last couple of weeks.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you all enjoyed the change-up, because we're going deep again.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: We're going right deep up in there again with more Pillowfort Sessions, deep dives, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: But before we do that, let us not forget our most favorite of five minutes, five seconds.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what it is now One minute.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: If we can make it a whole minute, oh my goodness, it'd be very interesting.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: But today, even though it is a school night, I'm in the house burying down in the tropical storm because you know we are in Central Florida, so I had nothing better to do tonight.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to just record, and you know what I'm going to get me a note beverage and I'm finishing up my Topo Chico here A tangy lemon lime, two grams of sugar oh no, there's sugar in this one Boo, 100 calories, but been pretty good so far, so I figure I'm going to enjoy that.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I think I had a couple of these already.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I think I made it almost 10 seconds there, I don't even know.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: No warning there, I'm just going to jump right up in it.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: No warm-up, just putting it right up in there and sucking it down.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: We love our innuendos here.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what we are going to talk about today is an interesting topic, mostly dealing with me specifically, specifically, or a trait of mine, and I've always said that I was demisexual.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: But having looked into this topic a little bit more, I kind of feel like I'm more on the right side of the spectrum.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what side it's on, but yeah, today we're talking about asexuality, the asexual spectrum.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: We will touch on the other attraction types because everybody knows the romantic spectrum in there is one of the more talked about ones, but there are some other ones that I found during my research that make sense and usually just aren't really talked about.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So while I'm talking about asexuality, we're going to go through all the attraction spectrums because, yeah, this is um, asexual is just asexual, or ace or um arrow for the aryromantic, the nicknames that we like to call or that we like to use.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, I've had a little bit more insights into what I am exactly, and probably more so on the ace side than the demisexual side, as I'm trying to find out here.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: But let me go into it and stop pussying around, pussy footing around.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Pussying around, pussy footing around.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if we're allowed to say that anymore.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Can we say that anymore?
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I don't even know, we'll have to see.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: But we're going to use it now because I haven't seen anywhere.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I've done my research on the pc terms and that one hasn't come up.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Come up, come up, yep, all the different ups in words.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, trying to get my notes together here.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we have the typical start.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: What we do is we go through a definition.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: So asexuality is defined or used to describe someone who has not experienced sexual attraction towards individuals of any gender.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: It's a sexual orientation, as we know, lgbtqia it's in there the A.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: This is what we're talking about.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: So sexual orientation, but you don't have sexual attraction.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: So it's very interesting.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: So we put a question mark on there.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: It's different from celibacy because it's a choice to refrain from sexual activity.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: When you're talking about celibacy, this is not a choice.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: As we know, with the alphabet community, that is not a choice.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: But celibacy is you can do chemical or make it permanent.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Castration is a thing, um, yeah, if you want to go that way.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: There's chemical versions of that, though, so that could be temporary.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I haven't really had much research on, uh, how you bounce back afterwards, but I know that's the thing.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: That is something I've thought about actually myself in recent times, just to get, get it out of there, get less distraction that way, because mine especially like masturbation and stuff very much just a maintenance thing, just because the body is.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: You know, the body is the body.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, that that was the actual thing.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Don't want to do it permanently, or at least not at that point.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: But yeah, this stuff is there and it happens.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: So when I do masturbate, maybe like once or twice a week, it's definitely for maintenance.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: It's a physiological thing.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: May choose to engage while not experiencing sexual attraction.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: So there's three different types of ace people we go down to, like the subcategories there's sex repulse.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: There's sex neutral and there's a sex positive.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely one of the more sex positive people because I do have partners that are more allosexual than I am and enjoy physical activity.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: I just never experienced that thing where I look at somebody, I can see that somebody is aesthetically pleasing.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Well, that's one of the attraction things, so we'll go on here.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I'll just say that.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: And that's one of the attraction things, so we'll go on here.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I'll just say that.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Different words and different attractions.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize there was so many specifically.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So when people are just talking about relationships, they usually talk about sex and romance and it's like but there's intimacy and aesthetically and all those other things too, and it's like let's talk about those things, because often you read on Reddit or Ace forums and stuff and people will be like so why would you want to be in a relationship in the first place?
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: It's like sexuality is one of the six main ones which I'm going to go to here soon.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: There's six different attraction types.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: When you're talking about relationships and relating to people, it's like there's more than that.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: So the ace people that are out there this is the hate that happens and it's like you ask the question if you're ace, can you be in a relationship?
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: It's like, yes, yes, we they can.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Uh, as I'm trying to figure out here, all experimenting here in life, so trying to see how that feels for right now, it feels more accurate when I think back to all my experiences.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: It's like I want to cuddle you.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to do the sex stuff, unless we have a different, more attraction areas being hit.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: It's very interesting.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: So hopefully that makes more sense as I go through this explanation here throughout this podcast episode.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the attractions.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: There are six attractions.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So we know sexual desires contact or shows sexual interest in another person.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Romantic desires contact or interaction romantically with another person.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: So the big difference here is when you're talking about romance versus sex.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Obviously we know sex is mostly physical.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Sure, we'll go with that.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Romance is holding hands, pda, flowers, making somebody feel better, going on dates and stuff.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of hard to specifically nail down what romantic is In general.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: We probably have to figure that out, the specifics, but in general that's what romantic means wanting to do that stuff, and I think I'm pretty aromantic too.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: But that's that stereotype that most people that present as male just don't have that and it's like there are romantic male-presenting people out there.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Let's not let that stereotype keep talking.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: They probably just don't know what it is.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I know, having grown up as male in this society, we don't get taught those things.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: You kind of see it on TV and just kind of replicate it in real life, but you don't go through like a class or anything.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Nobody's like this is why you get flowers.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: What type of flowers?
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: The flowers have meanings.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize flowers had meanings, I think, until I was in my 30s.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: So it's like oh yay, nobody told us this.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: We don't get taught this.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: It's not something that gets taught.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: So I guess you're supposed to just be romantic.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know why people complain when their partner is not romantic.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Well, wait a second.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Did you have a conversation with them?
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Not everybody likes flowers.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I know to figure out that person and what they like in general.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So usually with my relationships I'm accidentally romantic.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I'm like oh yeah, I think in a very matter-of-factual way I could be on another spectrum.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: We'll see about that undiagnosed.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: But when there's signs, you know.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: But I'm more like oh, dave mentioned they like this, here you go, here's this thing, here's this.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Take this, I don't know.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: And then oh, it's so romantic.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, totally planned it that way, I just went A to B.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: But sure, if you think it's romantic, then it is yeah.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: So those are the first two, sexual or romantic.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Now let's go into a little bit more attractions, the other four main ones that people just don't even think about.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Now I mentioned this before.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: But aesthetically pleasing the appreciation of somebody's appearance or beauty, which is like quote-unquote and everybody has a different, very subjective opinion of what beauty is of a person disconnected from sexual or romantic.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: So I'm more of a light switch when it comes to this.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I know, for me if somebody's aesthetically pleasing doesn't mean I wouldn't, wouldn't not want to be in a relationship.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know, that's a factor.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: It's like on or off.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, you're aesthetically pleasing.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I like looking at you, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: So it's like I, you know, I know people are like on an attractive scale or more attractive.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: You know celebrities Scarlett Johansson, matthew McConaughey's like I need more, like it doesn't really do anything.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: It's like, okay, good, I like doing stuff.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: I know for me aesthetically pleasing, that definitely triggers my primal side.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: You all heard me talk about that a couple episodes ago.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: But I mean, that's kind of a personality thing too.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I know, if I see somebody and say I want to bite them and scratch them, but it's still, it doesn't necessarily lead to sex, okay.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Next, we have sensual desire to interact in tactile, non-sexual way, such as huggly, hug, huggling, hugging or cuddling.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: So sensual or intimate, uh, is what I would use as well when it comes to the sensual thing.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, cuddling, hugging, what else is there?
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe making out?
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I feel like making out would be more.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Is that romantic?
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I know making out leads to sexual stuff, but if I'm intimate with somebody, then making out is, I can't say it's an expectation, but it's part of it.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: It's just like a little check.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, you probably want to make out, like making out with that person, very interesting.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: But yeah, hugging, cuddling, those type of things.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Intimacy, sensual.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: And then we have emotional.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Now, this here is where your boy shines.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: So, not demisexual, but you cannot control your feelings, that's not possible.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: You have feelings and it happens, and of course you say emotions.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: So that's why emotional gets here.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: But specifically when we're talking about Pacific Ocean, when we're talking about attraction, we are talking about somebody's personality.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: So when we say emotional, we're talking about your attraction or desire to get to know somebody's personality.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, when we say emotional, we're talking about your attraction or desire to get to know somebody's personality.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, I want to make that very clear.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: So for me, this is one of my.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Then see, you know, I'm still trying to find the test when do you fall on the attraction scale?
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Which ones light up for you?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Because, speaking from the asexualist perspective, this is where it gets into.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: The thing is like if you're ace, then why are you in a relationship Like thinking that sex is the only attraction factor?
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: No, that's not how it is, not how it is.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about emotional here.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Personality.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I get off on knowing somebody's personality.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: It does not mean I want to have sex with them, but I do want to be intimate with them.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I love figuring out somebody's personalities or quirks, all those different types of things.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And then also another highway, the last one here is intellectual.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So desire and engage in an intellectual manner we don't want to say intelligence, because that's ableist talk, so specifically intellectual manner, trying to figure out how somebody thinks, not if they can think.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Iq isn't, you know, a standard Just because somebody is below the average there doesn't mean, you know, they're less.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I mean they're less intelligent.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: But intellectual attraction is how somebody thinks.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So they don't have to be a genius in order to be attractive.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So for me, I talk to people and I know how they think.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I know I really stick with stick.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I really get off on people that are researchers, people that look up.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Stuff is very sexy to me.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: So I would say emotional is first personality and then intellectual how somebody thinks.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, and we really want to say those specific things, because I know people say sapiosexual and that is attracted to intelligence, but that is ableist.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Now, so it's, there's another word for it and it's harder word to say.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: So a lot not a lot of people have put it out there as of yet, but once I see it again I'll be like oh yes, that's what it is.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: So just want to.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Instead of using a fancy word, I want to say that is how somebody thinks, instead of their intelligence level, iq, even though we want eq, which is emotional quotient, I feel like that's mislabeled as well.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I think it is uh, do you have empathy?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know if people really want high eq, they just want to know that you are empathetic in some way or another, you show empathy.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, we got to work on these labels.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: We need new names for all this stuff.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I know people are like, oh God, more names.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: No, but yeah, it helps you differentiate because some of these ones are just kind of being slapped on here and it's not quite right.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: So me, demi attracted, sapio attracted Doesn't really have to do with sexual, very low on the sexual attraction.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's see.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: What do we have next?
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Remember, let's see.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Remember, so we have some notes.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Remember that orientation and attraction do not define or predict behavior.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Person could be asexual, aromantic, neither, or both ace or aro.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: So they don't predict each other.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: It's just another one to point out Once again.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: If I don't get that across in this episode is that ace and aro, aromantic and asexual, are just two of the attraction factors.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, two, just two, and they do not depend on each other, so they are mutually exclusive.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I could go into detail If you want more labels.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm going to talk about some of them, but there's different types.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: So a company could be allosexual or aromantic and somebody could be all the way alloromantic.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I guess that was for an asexual.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: So I mean, it's all the different attraction things.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I'm on one end but high on the emotional or demi-attractiveness.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Let's just remember that this is not a predicting thing.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: So if somebody says that they are asexual or aromantic, remember that's two of the attraction things.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I'll keep saying that over and over again.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Hopefully it sinks in eventually.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Acceptance is still new.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: It's growing research from sociology and psychological perspectives, as it just kind of began like 10 years ago and of course I got to nerd out a little bit and go into actual dates here.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Oh no, like 30 years ago, sorry, still new, just close to the turn of the century.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: People may see non-romantic or non-sexual relationships and they call that queer, platonic relationships.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Sure, some more labels there.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Non-sexual crushes are called squishes instead of crushes.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: They call it a squish.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I know now after doing my research here and coming across squish.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: I think I heard it before but it didn't really make any sense to me.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Now I understand Squish.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I can be emotionally attracted to somebody and intellectually attracted to them, but don't want to do anything with them.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Those are squishes.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I have friends that have squishes but I don't want to do anything physical with them.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: No intimacy, no sexual stuff or romance, but don't want to do anything physical with them.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: No intimacy, no sexual stuff or romance, but definitely attracted their, their, their personality and how they think of things.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: It's great.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Squishes, I like that term comes from wanting to have and be friends, opposed to crush.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I guess crush is more on the sexual and romantic attraction levels, where squish is more on the yeah, more on my side of the thing personality and brain stuff.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: So you can, somebody asexual can participate in sexual activity out of curiosity.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Masturbation and sex, referred to as sex drive and disassociation from sexual attraction and being ace.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Masturbating equals normal product of human body, physiological.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: So yeah, what I was saying before, when I masturbate it's just like the body just got to get the poison Such a bad thing.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: But yeah, just call it getting the poison out.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Heard that from a comedian at some point.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what it really feels like.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: It's like let's just get this over so I can go to sleep, otherwise I'm going to keep thinking about it.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Get this over so I can go to sleep, otherwise I'm gonna keep thinking about it and like.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: For me, as far as like intimacy and aesthetic, it's like those are good and I like me some cuddles, but if I'm not, uh, attracted to somebody's personality or how they think, then it's like nothing's really gonna work there and I don't.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I, how long the cuddling will actually happen, but yeah, if everything's firing on full cylinders, it's like then I do, man, I don't really want to be all sexual about it, but it's like sex is a goal, let's just put it that way.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I'm going to deep dive into that, but it's yeah, it's weird, it's man, it's hard to explain now, but it's like if I'm attracted to you, to your personality, how you think, then yeah, I'm sex positive.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: It's like we can do that.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: It's good.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: It's hard to say like, oh, I'm just doing it for you, but it's like I'm here for cuddles, that's what I'm here for Cuddles and conversation.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: The sexual stuff I mean happens if you're attracted.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You know, stuff happens to people, genitals.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: If you touch it or stimulate it in a way, stuff's gonna.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: You know, juices start flowing, stuff gets bigger.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: That's all there is to it.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: But it's not like it's not enjoyable, it's that's you know the the thing.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: But yeah, masturbation is like okay, why?
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And like hookup culture.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: I don't understand.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I know pickup play is a big thing in the bdsm community, especially like dungeons and clubs.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: But it's like I don't understand paying for sex and and and services is.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I didn't.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize till more recently, later in my 30s and now being in my 40s, why that was like repulsive to me.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: But it's like why would I do that?
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Don't, don't send me your menu, I don't need any of that.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: What is that for?
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I don't, I don't get that.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not paying for anything.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: It's like ugh, why would I do that?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Don't send me your menu, I don't need any of that.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: What is that for?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I don't get that.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not paying for anything.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: It's weird.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Well, to me it's weird.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I know people do it.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Let me put a caveat on there.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: It's weird to me and now I know why.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Hey, the more you know.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I said the research started like 30 years ago, so back in 94, uk researchers, uk people, of course, ahead of their time, europe in general, especially with the sexual stuff, they're just more freer than we are here in America.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I wonder why.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe the Christians came over in boats and settled the country first.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: This is why we have all these laws and stuff.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to get political, but, yeah, people are like what is that?
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: It's like, do you forget the religious people that got kicked out of Europe?
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Or they're the ones that started America.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Let's not forget that.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: So, anyways, research and stuff like this usually starts from a British person coming to America or actually in Britain.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Let's see, they surveyed almost 20,000 people and found that 1.05% never felt sexual attraction.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: So I found that very interesting.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: From that study, almost 20,000 people 1% didn't even feel it.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Back in 94, I don't think I even heard of the queer community back in 94.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I was underage.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: But still, these kids these days, they got the TikToks and the Instagrams and stuff.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: They found out about this stuff way early.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: It's like can't say way early.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: That's subjective.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I would have liked to known back when I was going through school.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of jealous right now.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, this is why I felt weird all these years.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, then we fast forward to 2004.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Researcher named Anthony Boyart Now it's B-O-G-A-E-R-T.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Boyart Boyart, I'll go with that Explored in a series of studies which let's see here.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: What does this say?
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: May not be 100% accurate, because less experienced people may not participate in studies.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: So what that is saying there is obviously not.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Obviously, of course, I don't even know if that's the right word, but if you are not feeling sexual attraction, you're probably not going to have sex.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So it's like if you don't have experience with sexual activities, then I don't don't know if these studies can be accurate right here.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: So you'd have to.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: That would be a very small group, because sex positive asexuals smaller group than, obviously, sex repulsed and sex neutral.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Um, I can't really say that, but my point is there's a smaller group of the asexual spectrum in general, so hard to get accurate data if people are not participating in the research that you're trying to find.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that works.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: So that's what they figured out in 2004.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: It's like this actually might not be accurate.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And then in 2013, aiken et al Did another study 0.4% in age range 16 to 44.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: And then 2015, boyd Yacht came back again and realized there could be an ethnic difference.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know, because in the different cultures and stuff it's talking about the birds and the bees, quote unquote.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: That doesn't really happen the same way.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I know as an Asian child.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: It's just matter of factly.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Hey, you know what you're doing.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: It's like yeah, we learned it in school.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're good to go.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: That was it.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, you don't want to talk about this.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, hilarious, oh man, okay.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So after this time they did realize that asexuality was not considered a disorder.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: It was not linked to symptoms associated with disorders.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: More likely they have lower self-esteem.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: So they thought it was like depression kind of sort of at that time.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: But it's like hold on a second, just not feeling sexual attraction, not necessarily a symptom of depression or linked to depression.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: And then let's see here Sexual attraction defined as lack of lustful inclinations, feelings directed toward others.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that lust thing Don't really I feel like.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I feel more like Hannibal Lecter.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I want to like lick your brain when I'm attracted to.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, that's, that's good, that's good.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Right there, let me just go ahead and lick that up.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Really, really, really good.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, lustful, not really Clear distinction between behavior and desire may show in reduced sexual activity overall.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's boy.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: This is tough considering our modern society that we have here.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, and then in 2006, you have Boyag.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Boyag, again in an article, had two objections to classifying as orientation self-reporting issue, physical arousal over subjective attraction and overlap between absent and very low sexual desire.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Low desire may have sexual orientation, can be asexual, but, but with different orientations, which is very confusing because sexual orientation versus sexual attraction yet again we have a differentiating word.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: So sexual orientation has to do with aesthetics.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: So I would argue that they're probably talking about aesthetic attraction because that has to do with, like, body types and how people present themselves, male and female, energy and all in between.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's very interesting because you can be asexual but then romantically attracted to people of one gender, multiple genders, transitioning, all different kinds of things.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: It's very interesting, okay.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: So, as we wrap up here because my time is almost up, I want to quickly just go through the split attraction model.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Basically, this is how this whole thing came about here and what the model does is it distinguishes between a person's attractions.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: So here we go with all the different, the six common attraction types, and then the concept of orientation first started back in 1879.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: So this is how we started with all the different attraction things and what led to the spectrums in.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: In general, somebody, you know we really have different words for all the different attraction types.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: But, carl Eurex, similar it's to the LGBTQIA community, different between that tender and in love feelings, but more complex.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, yeah, this is where it gets into the weeds people A little bit more confusing than what we saw before or what I was talking about before.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: So I am doing a preliminary like shallow end of the pool dive into this.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: So I'm sticking with the attractions, but this is talking about more science-y stuff.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to go through this a little bit, but I understand if it doesn't really make any sense, but I want to put it in there anyway, because the split attraction model is something that I could do another episode on.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: It's very interesting information, but this is basically where we started with the whole orientation thing.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: So we started, of course, with the sexual orientation and then we go to all the different attractions and then in 1979, dorothy Tenev came up with the word like the limerence of a crush.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: So that's where we started differentiating between in love and then having tender feelings.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I guess those are in love versus loving people.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: So you say you love your family, love your friends, but it's not the same thing as quote unquote a romantic partner because you're in love with them.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: So that's where this is all talking about here.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Uh, the asexual was coined in 2015.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Arrow in 2005, which is very interesting.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: That came 10 years later helps to explain how one attraction without need for other to match.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: So that's where they differentiated it.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, in the 2000s, when that whole started, after we had the split attraction model back in the 18 1880s, pretty much no extensive studies.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: But lisa diamond stated romantic and sexual can be different.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, so this is back in 2015.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: And, lastly, we have 2022.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: So a couple of years ago, a man named Michael Paramo realized that other attractions were identified and should be considered, not only in the LGBTQIA community but the other community as well.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about separating, which is very interesting.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Over 100 years later, after the split attraction model came to be, we just now started talking about the other attraction types.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: So hopefully, you kind of did a little bit of research about the asexual spectrum.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: So there's people that talk about it and smart people that actually you know, have degrees and such and such talk about the asexual spectrum.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: So there's people that talk about it and smart people that actually you know have degrees in such and such talk about the asexual spectrum, but I didn't see too much of them talking about the different attraction types.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Could be because it just started two years ago.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: So hopefully this is a springboard for those types of things and stay tuned If I ever find a quiz that you know.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Of course it's an online quiz, so definitely would need to do more research on it.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: People just now talking about it, so hopefully we get something going on within the next couple of years.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Ah, delicious, topo Chico Not sponsored.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Hopefully we get more into it in the next couple years here and we do.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: We have more research being done, because it's like man did not know there was a different attraction types until I went onto this and hopefully I put the link for a couple of the reference sites that I'm using.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Hopefully I remember to do that.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we try to get better with that.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: But it's like, oh goodness, I try to be energized when you're doing this, but it's like, after decades of being on Earth, we have the terms and definitions for this stuff.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Obviously, as I pointed out, this research started before I was alive.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: I know most of you were not born in 1879.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: So it's like, with more research, you can learn to be you.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: So here's my PSA disclaimer.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: It's like, yes, we have a bunch of different labels now, but for some of us I mean also side note nobody should be using labels as like a crutch, but for some of us, it's good to know these things because it helps us understand what's going on in our brain.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: As I've said multiple times, I know for me I always thought something was wrong and, of course, come to find out.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: There's terms for this and people have done research on these things much smarter people than I am the doctors and the therapists and all this stuff and the scientists.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, there's different attraction types.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Didn't realize that?
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Just thought it all had to do with sexual attraction.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Boy, was I wrong?
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Goodness gracious.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: But anyways, I'm going over time now as I'm yapping along here, it's like, oh goodness, bang head against table.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Why was I not taught this in school?
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Good Lord, I literally hit my halfway point, my midlife crisis.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I'm just now learning about this.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: So hopefully the next half of my life I'll understand what's going on and be able to talk to people and not have so much hurt feelings.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I just say you know, it's not that I don't like you, I just don't want to stick stuff in stuff.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It's just now how I get together.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Give me an interesting article or a video.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: That's what gets me going.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: That tells me you like me and I'm attracted.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: There you go, show me how you think that's what I like to see or talk about, sure, anyway, speaking of talking, I'm going to talk about Campfire Kingsters on Instagram.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Make sure you go on there, subscribe and like the post.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I guess I don't know.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Whatever you're listening to, make sure you rate this video, video, video, sure.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Rate this episode, podcast, give it five stars, or how many stars you feel appropriate, and catch us next time on another Thursday, hopefully every Thursday from now until the end of time, but if not, most Thursdays.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: This is the Cuddled Gigolo El Comi D, aka HH Julius, and we'll see you on another episode of the Pillow Fort Sessions on the Around the Kinky Campfire podcast.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Hello.