Talk:Autosexuality

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[edit] Merge complete

The old article is available at Autoeroticism/History1. Brisvegas 01:29, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

The article seems biased to me. It appears to be pointed in a non-neutral direction in that autosexuality is a "bad" thing that specifically subscribes to sublimation of repressed urges such as rape and homosexuality are the soul purpose for said topic.

    "Others find it to be a distinct sexual orientation. Still others say it has nothing to do with any of those things."

That's nice that others say that but shouldn't the things that others "say" be discussed, if it pertains to the topic?

"Sometimes, autosexuals use their practices (i.e. masturbation) as substitute for harmful behaviors toward others, such as rape, pedophilia, and many other kinds of immoral and criminal behaviors. Some wish that by fantasizing in their acts, they can help reduce and eventually relieve the thoughts of harming others. However, many case studies have proven that the thoughts of harming others strengthen rather than weaken, which leads to violent behaviors."

Not only is the previous sentence "bad grammer" but it once again represents only one side of an argument. In order to be truly unautocratic and unprejudiced, this article needs to be seriously rectified. I believe that autosexuality can provide a faucet of relief for an individual in that sexual energies build from within and autosexuality allows an individual to relieve themself of urges that may not be feasable for an individual to rectify by any other means. Perhaps the individual may live alone or even in a remote area thusly limiting their abilities to find a mate in which case autosexuality can help if the person desires a release from their physical urges. It is in gerontology that we find generations of older females that have lost husbands tend to not remarry in part due to the trend of women living longer and men dieing sooner thusly reducing the pool of men to choose from, but we also find that older generations do not loose their sexuality. What do you do if you're a female, who's 80, has no hopes of finding a male or may not even desire one, has led a sexual life (possibly with a husband), and still has sexual urges? Do you not think about sex and repress it into the depths of the brain due to socially unacceptable views of autoeroticism and sexuality in older age, or do you do something which seems completely natural (as the name suggest) and autoeroticate?

Portions Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autosexuality"


I think there are two related concepts that get called "autosexual":

  1. people who feel sexual attraction towards themselves but not towards anyone else/any other type of person.
  2. enjoying oneself sexually as iMeowbot describes)

I'm happy to see the more common usage from developmental psychology here, but I don't want to lose the previous sense. I believe there really are people in the first category , who do identify as "queer" and/or "having alternative sexuality." I'd like to put back some text about that form of autosexuality. (I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to it in the next couple of days though.) FreplySpang (talk) 02:41, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough; I was mostly doing some quick patching to get the genreally recognized elements in there, since there's a VfD going on and all.
On the concept of exclusive autosexuality as a distinct sexual orientation, there really doesn't seem to be much of anything in the way of literature to support that. It might be best to simply stick with stating that there are people who identify themselves as such, since there are multiple plausible explanations of what is actually going on there without research to back it up :/ --iMb~Meow 03:45, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] VfD

On April 11, 2005, this article was nominated for deletion. The result was keep. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Autosexuality for a record of the discussion. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 18:37, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

This seems unduly negative: "One example of a dangerous practice is autoerotic asphyxiation. It may result in death, particularly when done alone." Njál

is it not true ?
i mean, it is a fact ... people can die from lack of air ...
din't think that stating that is not neutral
Not POV, rather factual. Autoerotic asphyxiation is a dangerous practice, especially when tools such as ropes or ties are involved. One may become unconscious and strangle him- or herself to death, and since it is AUTOeroticism, no help is available in case of emercency. So, the mention is fully justified.
There is a pretty amount of weasel words in this article, though. Lots of "some think," "some believe," "it has been said" and all that stuff. Sources would be nice, but I don't know any. Maybe someone can add something? --TheOtherStephan 4th February 2006
  • So should we remove the NPOV tag now? 199.111.230.195 23:09, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
It looks fine to me now, its one of those articles thats going to be very hard not to upset people who read it and keep people from making it POV. You can just 'see' the edit wars over it can't you. Would be intresting to see if their is any psychology related material to be added. I quite liked the idea of breaking it into cultural, technical, and perhaps psychological parts? -- Shimirel (Talk) 01:23, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Crutch for deviant behavior

this section troubles me:

Sometimes, autosexuals use their practices (i.e. masturbation) as substitute for harmful behaviors toward others, such as rape, pedophilia, and many other kinds of immoral and criminal behaviors. Some wish that by fantasizing in their acts, they can help reduce and eventually relieve the thoughts of harming others. However, many case studies have proven that the thoughts of harming others strengthen rather than weaken, which leads to violent behaviors.

Usually, I see this argument used to attack homosexuals or pornography or whatever else the christian right is pissed off about this week, and I seem to recall reading a debunking of it in some journal recently, so it's inclusion here without any links, and without any discussion of the counterpoint, seems like a troll to me.

Thoughts?

Agreed. This is heresay unless someone can produce a supporting clinical study, and apart from a few unsubstantiated criticisms on conservative Christian sites, I've not been able to find any such evidence. Even if there is a relationship between sexual satsifaction and abstention from "violent behaviors" (which I question), shouldn't this be true for those of all preferences? Is this supposed phenomenon really more profound with respect to autosexual behavior? If not, it doesn't warrant a special mention in this article. I'm going to nix this unless someone can give a good reason not to. User:jld2116 16:18, 30 Dec 2005 (UTC)
If I may say so: The article has to be divided into a "technical part" - how it is done - and a "cultural part" - how people think about it. And by "people" I do not only mean conservative christians but also muslims, natural religions, the "enlightened" etc. It is, approve it or not, part of human culture, and this has to reflect in the article, because that is what people are interested in if they consult wiki. The cultural part, I mean. I should think, everyone knows the technical bit ;-)
(Oh, what a slippery slope I'm on...)
And by the way: It is not only part of human development, I've seen horses doing it! Heinrich L. 21:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] this article is lame! thought policing is lame!

with having spent the majority of my adult life as a so-called autosexual, even though i am homosexual, that this article represents a normalization of the categorization of sexuality and thereby its control! if you're interested in this idea see my comments recently posted ( by DEV) on the talk page of the "gay" or the "dionysian art students" post on the "hippie" article talk-page.

who cares if it's 'controlling', the fact is that such a category DOES exist and thus wiki is obliged to report it. categorisition is a human instinct and very much real, wikipedia does not exist as a means for social change. 81.107.159.5 19:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article a bit confusing

The article suggests that people who are autosexual prefer to masturbate rather then have sex. It then goes on to suggest that these people are exclusively atttracted to themselves. I know very little about this subject but it strikes me as likely that some people who prefer to masturbate rather then having sex still don't focus on themselves but rather other people or pornography or whatever. Nil Einne 20:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above statement, that there are people who could be considered autosexual simply because they prefer to masturbate than have sex with other people, yet are not attracted to themselves, whether they are homosexual or heterosexual. It seems more likely that they would fit into this category than into the category of asexuality, because they feel sexual desires toward the same or opposite sex, unlike a true asexual person. Also, the article should discuss different reasons that a person might prefer autsosexuality, such as negative or traumatic sexual experiences, feeling uncomfortable with intimacy and/or social interaction, feeling that they themselves are unattractive, or feelings that sex between two people is just wrong for them personally or in general. It could perhaps be considered a psychologically unhealthy form of heterosexuality or homosexuality, but perhaps not. I don't know if there is any research on these aspects of the topic, but I know from experience that these feelings exists. Akseli 00:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

There is some research on this topic, but most of it is so controversial that it doesn't meet the guidelines of WP:RS. But then again, a truer definition of autosexuality is that the person is erotically aroused by themeselves, and not necessarily prefers masturbation. (For an example of how far out some other theories are, one sexologist concluded that if twins were autosexual they would also wish to have sex with each other. Too many issues. ) --ElaragirlTalk|Count 15:57, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
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