“Asexuality is an identity on equal footing with heterosexuality, homosexuality and so on”, says Sunniva Árja Tobiasen.
She is one of the few academics in Norway who has immersed herself in research on asexuality, during her master’s programme at the University of Oslo. Unlike other sexual identities, people don’t talk much about being asexual in our society.
For some individuals, it can therefore be difficult to reconcile themselves to the fact that they do not feel a sexual attraction to other people.
The first time asexuality was described in a way similar to how we think of it today was in 1954. In the Kinsey report on women’s sexual habits and behaviour, the authors introduced category X:
Finally, an individual receives the designation X if he or she does not react erotically to either heterosexual or homosexual stimuli.
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Both Tobiasen and [professor Randi Elin] Gressgård believe that the medical community has contributed to pathologizing asexuality.
The definition of diagnoses labelled sexual dysfunctions overlaps with the description of being asexual.
“Experiencing little or no sexual desire does not have to mean that something is wrong,” says Tobiasen.
