Antisexualism

Antisexualism is opposition or hostility towards sexual behavior and sexuality.^[1] In pre-modern times, antisexual social movements were usually expressed in religious terms, but they now often have a secular social reform agenda. Most antisexual people believe that sexuality, but not asexuality, is a kind of addiction resulting in both physical and social effects, that it disrupts relationships, and causes people to lie and cheat to achieve the pleasure of sexual gratification. Antisexuals are not necessarily antinatalist, so they do not necessarily object to sex for procreation. Some antisexuals believe sexuality to be the cause of many of the world's problems. Antisexuals can also be opposed to the idea of romantic love, with some describing it as an "addiction to a person".

Reasons for antisexualism

The antisexual movement promotes antisexualism as a way of life. Antisexuals are not always asexual, although they say it is not impossible to become asexual and they seek asexuality, but the reasons for their antisexuality are often based on their reasoning or morals. A few of the claims some antisexuals make include:

• Sexuality can complicate relationships (as when people are hostile towards each other because they are sexually attracted to the same person).
• Sex may hinder one's spiritual development.
• Sexual desire can cause people to place primitive instinct ahead of intellect (people across the world continue to have unsafe casual sex despite their awareness of the dangers of STDs, for example).
• Sexuality asserts itself in the human mind by releasing neurochemicals comparable to addictive drugs into the brain.
• Sexual desire can cause people to lie and cheat in the pursuit of sexual relationships.
• Sexuality can lead to discrimination, based on perceptions of sexual immorality and intolerance of certain sexual preferences.
• Sexual desires could be false assumptions that are foisted on you by society, hence you may need to look at how your sexuality is ideologically and institutionally constructed.
• Sexuality, which is usually based on notion of physical attractiveness, encourages and justifies obliviousness to the unfairness of discrimination against people who are deemed unattractive by others.
• There is no difference between consent and coercion; sex is a means of oppression.
• There is a link between unrestricted reproduction, resource depletion and environmental decay. This is a position ideologically connected to deep ecology, antinatalism and Malthusianism.
• Mother-roles are a construct used to subjugate women, hence they may oppose procreation. This argument chimes with certain feminist and queer theories (lesbian, pro-celibacy and Ecofeminism), but not others.
• Male dominated families can be harmful entity for society, which is similar to the theory of Marx and Engels that male dominated family structures which reduce females to objects of reproduction and household chores are more a form of 'prostitution' than one of ethical family values. Some Marxists have advocated the abolition of the family and communal living.
• Sexual behavior evolved for human reproduction. If life is more a burden than a joy, one does a service to would-be offspring by not having them.
• Technological advances render sex obsolete.

Famous antisexualists

In history

• John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of the "corn flakes" variety of breakfast cereal, was opposed to all forms of sexual activity, especially masturbation. The Road to Wellville satirized his life and practices.
• Ann Lee was the founder of the Shakers, a radical Protestant sect that opposed procreation and all sexual activity.
• The Skoptzys were a radical sect of the Russian Orthodox Church that practiced castration and breast mutilation on females. They opposed procreation for reasons similar to the Protestant Shaker movement.
• Some forms of early ascetic Gnosticism held all matter to be evil, and that unnecessary gratifications of the physical senses were to be avoided. Married couples were encouraged to be celibate (see Book of Thomas the Contender, Acts of Thomas; also Spiritual marriage).
• Origen and Boston Corbett were reported to have castrated themselves.
• H.P. Lovecraft once said that "Eroticism belongs to a lower order of instincts, and is an animal rather than nobly human quality".^[2]
• Father Divine, Founder of the International Peace Mission Movement, advocated religious abstinence from sex and marriage and taught that sexual objectification is a root cause of undesirable social and political conditions. [1] [2]

In fiction

• The Junior Anti-Sex League, in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, was a group of young adult Party members devoted to banning all sexual intercourse, and replacing its procreative functions with the use of artificial insemination (children would be raised in public institutions, rather than in individual families). Though the League was founded and countenanced by the all-powerful totalitarian Party, the Party leadership did not allow it to succeed in its goals. However, the existence of the League served as an important public reminder of the Party's disapproval of all attachments and activities which could diminish exclusive loyalty to the Party, and that everything other than "normal intercourse between man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children, and without physical pleasure on the part of the woman" was forbidden sexcrime, which could be punished by death.
• In Jorge Luis Borges's Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius it is said that "one of the heresiarchs of Uqbar had declared that mirrors and copulation are abominable, because they increase the number of men."
• Walter Kovacs, alias Rorschach, in the Watchmen graphic novel.

See also

References

External links

• Antisexual Stronghold
  • Antisexual FAQ